


Vertigo

by nh8343



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Demons, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Post-Apocalyptic, angst & adventuring, best friends at the end of the world, in this house we love and support platonic relationships as much as romantic ones, moderate blood & violence, other warnings in author's note, possessions & exorcisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21990910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nh8343/pseuds/nh8343
Summary: Demons have torn through the veil in an age-old cycle of destruction, bringing this world to its knees. The only hope that remains is an uncertain promise of life after death, along with mortal champions chosen by spirits who seek to fight against the darkness.Hongjoong is one of those champions. He’s spent years trying to break the cycle while doing his best to protect the people he loves. But the fire inside him has dwindled down to hardly more than a spark. Though he’d never admit it to the others fighting alongside him, this war is beginning to look like a hopeless one.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Jeong Yunho & Song Mingi, Kim Hongjoong & Park Seonghwa
Comments: 12
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finishing off the decade with a surprise ATEEZ fic! This is the first thing I’ve written over 40k that hasn’t taken over a year to write or made me hate it by the end, which is just a small part of why it’s so special to me.
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: I haven’t tagged for major character death. Due to the nature of the fic, there is no permanent major character death, but it’s technically still there. If this is triggering for you, I would recommend not reading, but trust me when I say things will (eventually) turn out okay for all our heroes.

When Hongjoong was a child, he saw a boy stomp on a butterfly.

The boy had pulled the attention of all the other children to the colored flash of wings with no indication of his intentions, drawing them in with a seemingly harmless “watch this”. Hongjoong’s wonder-filled eyes hadn’t blinked as the boy brought his foot down in one swift movement to flatten the beautiful creature against the pavement. It lay there with its wings painting the ground like a stain, a still-life portrait made horrid by its method of creation.

And for what? The boy had turned away without sparing the butterfly a second glance. He’d laughed in Hongjoong’s face at the broken “Why?” that had been pulled from his lips. There was no ‘why’. Cruelty without cause. That day, Hongjoong thought he knew what evil looked like, thought he was intimately acquainted with its face.

He was wrong.

Three years ago, the jaws of Hell had opened wide and let the true face of evil through. Demons by the thousands spilled from the veil’s weakened seams to kickstart an Armageddon that had only been told of in stories. Suddenly it was all life boiled down to: demons possessing humans and stripping them for life force, benevolent spirits blessing mortal champions to fight against the darkness, promises of a new world on the other side of death. It was a lot to take in. But big picture aside, it mostly meant killing a lot of demons and hoping to come out unscathed, which is sometimes easier said than━

“Someone cover Mingi!”

Wooyoung’s shout almost makes Hongjoong miss his next swing. He just manages to sidestep the demon’s answering lunge, running his blade clean through its chest. Luckily, these demons are possessing humans and not in their monstrous form, trading strength for a steady stream of life force. Had it been the other way around, Hongjoong’s misstep might have gone much differently.

His own threat neutralized, he immediately looks in Mingi’s direction, where the other man is in the midst of what’s devolved into a fistfight on the ground. Hands circle around Mingi’s throat, a terrifying grin leaning in to deliver the kiss of death.

San is close. Yunho is closer. He rips the Possessed off Mingi’s body and cleanly removes its head from its shoulders. The last two stragglers are finished off by the others without any further close calls. These demons won’t be coming back from behind the veil any time soon.

“Quickly get what you can carry,” Hongjoong tells the others, motioning to the farmhouse behind them. “Planks are ideal, but as long as it’s not rotted, any wood should work for the fortifications.”

Quickly, because the fact that a group of Possessed cornered them here in the first place is concerning. They aren’t far from their camp. Having enemies so nearby doesn’t exactly make a safe haven feel safe. Still, he supposes this is all he can ask for right now: everyone alive and unpossessed, and another victory underneath their belts.

Eventually, he’s sure, these victories will start feeling like they mean something again.

Ω

The short trek back to their camp is mostly made in silence. Maybe the victory should call for a little more celebration, but the others seem to sense what Hongjoong’s thinking even before he says it: they can no longer stay here. Even if their makeshift home had been a scrappy one that they knew was temporary to begin with, it’s still a sobering reality having to finally leave it behind.

At the camp’s edge, Wooyoung touches a hand to his blade before holding it out for the others, letting them each do the same in turn. For them as they are now, it’s nothing more than a cool touch of metal. If any of them had been possessed, it would mean a world of pain. Demons and holy water-soaked weapons aren’t a pleasant combination.

When Hongjoong reaches out to touch, Wooyoung rolls his eyes but holds the blade steady anyway. He’s made it known that he finds Hongjoong joining in on their post-battle ritual unnecessary. Maybe some of the others agree with him. Hongjoong still makes a show of it each time, even if he knows the answer will always be the same. He’ll never be revealed as possessed, because he can’t  _ be _ possessed.

Those mortal champions chosen by spirits who wanted to help this realm? ‘Champion’ isn’t a word Hongjoong would ever use, but he knows those stories well because he’s a part of them. The spirit Teliko had appeared to him in a vision soon after demons had torn through the veil. She’d told him the foundation of her plans for how to end this madness, and she’d granted Hongjoong three gifts as a result of the new power flowing through his veins.

His senses were sharper and more heightened when fighting off his enemies. He could turn water pure enough to bless their weapons with a touch of his hand. And he no longer had to fear for a demon shoving its darkness down his throat.

_ Use these gifts to cast those creatures from this realm _ , she’d instructed him, and cast them out Hongjoong had. Hundreds of them, with the help of the others who’d rallied around him and his cause. Still, he knows killing demons one by one isn’t the whole picture. Teliko has bigger plans in motion. The only thing he’s still waiting on is to hear her voice again.

It’s habit more than anything that pulls everyone to gravitate near the campfire. The day is still far too young for a fire to be going, but something seems to give away that Hongjoong plans to call them together for a talk. He must be in more of a routine of giving speeches than he thought.

Still, he waits a minute before starting, waits for the others to settle back in. San is patching up Mingi’s injuries, simultaneously managing to berate him for being so careless and put a smile back on his face despite his wounded pride. Wooyoung is separating out the wood they’d taken from the old farmhouse, throwing out a few scraps that are a step too close to rotten. Yunho is recounting their remaining food and other essentials, a noticeable wrinkle of worry visible on his face. Which is exactly what they need to stop dancing around.

“Alright, let’s talk,” he says. The camp isn’t large enough for his voice not to carry to the edge, but Hongjoong appreciates that the two people still standing come to sit by the others. He doesn’t have the energy today to catch attention they’re not willing to give.

“They’re getting closer, aren’t they?” Wooyoung prompts, already two steps ahead.

“Too close. The farmhouse was far enough away from the rest of the city for it not to be coincidence, which means they’re probably closing in. Our sigils can only do so much to keep us hidden. San, how confident do you feel about the cave you scoped out?”

The other man glances up from the last bandage he’s fastening around Mingi’s arm, pausing only a moment. “Confident enough.”

From anyone else, that would sound like a pretty half-assed answer. Hongjoong sees the words for the cautious analysis they are.

“Good,” he says, “because that’s where we’re heading. The last thing we want is an ambush because we waited too long to move. But if we’re moving further away from the city, supply runs are going to be much harder. We need to stock up before the move. Yunho, I was thinking…?”

“I can lead a team,” the other man agrees without missing a beat.

This. This is why Hongjoong knows who his top pick is for an operation of this importance even before fleshing out the details. Their mutual trust is something that only comes with years of a friendship being tried, tested, put through the fire, and coming out the other side unscathed. Yunho being the first to know of Teliko appearing in Hongjoong’s dreams was no accident.

“We’ll split into teams,” Yunho starts, taking over the meeting after a brief shared glance. “The city is mostly full of Possessed, but their numbers make up for what they lack in strength. We need a distraction.”

He breaks off a stick from the firewood in the middle of the circle to draw a rough diagram in the dirt. “San will come with me to hit as many shops as we can at the east end. There’s plenty further up the road we haven’t checked before. The rest of you just need to cause enough of a distraction to keep them occupied. Buy us enough time to get back out.”

Theoretically, it’s a good plan. There’s details to work out for all the parts in between, but they’ve always done well thinking on their feet. If their instincts were still wired to make stupid decisions for them, they’d be dead.

“I’ll lead the diversion,” Hongjoong confirms. “Anyone have objections to the plan?”

He sees two sets of shifty eyes refuse to meet his own, not surprising him in the least, before San is plastering a smile back on his face with a cheery “Nope, sounds good to me.” For what it’s worth, Hongjoong appreciates the effort.

“We leave in fifteen,” he tells them, rising to his feet. “Get as much packed as you can before then.”

He knows this is much more dangerous than they’ll dare say aloud. He knows that every time they step foot outside this camp, despite the looming danger that comes with staying within its confines, there’s a chance at least one of them won’t be coming back. He knows that every word that comes out of his mouth could be the last one someone hears, every wayward glance at his companions could be the last time he sees them with hope and defiance still pumping through their veins.

Which is why when Hongjoong sees San and Wooyoung hovering away from the others, exchanging murmured words in a hold too intimate to be misunderstood, he doesn’t chide them for not pulling their weight. He only averts his eyes to give them some semblance of privacy while he joins Mingi in dismantling their weapons storage.

Giving your heart to someone at the end of the world can be painful. He’s not about to add to that pain.

Ω

Yunho prefers this, if he’s being honest.

A concrete goal that he can plan for, the success or failure of which is entirely in his control. He’ll take ruined cities and sweat any day compared to all the waiting and the not knowing. The fighting has never been his favorite  ━ Hongjoong has that covered back on the ground, taking lead on their distraction. No, what Yunho’s really been looking forward to is the running. As he and San flit across the rooftops they’ve scaled their way up to, he indulges himself in the feeling of freedom running through his veins.

This isn’t their first go-around as a duo. Yunho knows how each of his friends operates, and his choice to bring San along with him hadn’t been an arbitrary one. San, for all the energy he brings, can be a shadow when he wants to be. He scouts ahead and around corners with a cat-like grace to confirm the coast is clear before they move their way across the city’s upper levels. Yunho, to his own credit, is athletic enough to keep up with him.

They’re as quick as they are quiet, staying out of sight and under any lingering demons’ radar. Until Yunho’s next step, instead of bearing his weight, goes straight through. The scaffolding around this particular building had gone to rot much more severely than it first appeared. He sucks in a sharp inhale, flailing at the loss of balance, until arms hook around his middle to steady him.

“Thanks,” Yunho says, heart still somewhere in his stomach.

“Just be glad your long-ass legs stopped you from falling all the way through.” (San still takes an extra few moments to check on Yunho’s ankle after extricating him from the sinkhole.)

The first few shops they run across are stripped bare. Yunho knows this because they were the ones to bleed the shelves and storage dry; their last serious supply run was a while ago, but it had been a worthwhile one. Their destination now is past the town square and further up the road, where Yunho has seen glimpses of what he hopes is enough food and other essentials to hold them out until Hongjoong gets more direction on where they’re heading next. If not...they’ll figure something out.

“Don’t be so nervous,” San chides him, shoving an elbow in the vicinity of Yunho’s ribs. “If we’re wrong, Hongjoong won’t get the chance to kill us. We’ll all die of starvation anyway.”

The grin that accompanies the nonchalant way he says it sends the ghost of a shudder down Yunho’s spine. “Do you have to be so morbid? Climb down here and let’s see if there’s an open window in the back.”

By “open” he means “shattered,” and they happen to be in luck. An entire back corner of the building has caved in, ruining windows and walls alike. Even though that means no noise is required to get inside, Yunho keeps a sharp eye out for any Possessed as they line their packs with  ━ thankfully ━ an assortment of canned food and bottled water.

This particular shop had been much more stocked than he’d anticipated. It looks like they’ll reach capacity with just one stop, which means they can save the rest of the district for future runs  ━ Hongjoong had been right about it being much less convenient, but they still need to eat. Unless they find closer remnants of civilization nearby or change their minds about taking their chances in the last standing city (and likely get Hongjoong killed by an angry mob), this is still their best option.

A noise sounds from the other side of the storeroom wall. San and Yunho both have their packs slung back over their shoulders and their weapons drawn before they even exchange a glance. In other circumstances, this would be the perfect time to drop the extra weight. Not when any moment they could need to make a run for it. Under no circumstances could they leave their hard-earned spoils behind.

“There’s two. I counted footsteps,” San whispers. He’s pressed almost uncomfortably close to Yunho’s side, but it means the words hardly have to be more than a suggestion of air for Yunho to hear them. “You first?”

Yunho can already see the plan coming together in his head. “Ten seconds.” He feels two taps on his arm in confirmation. Good.

One more breath and Yunho is bursting out the door to the front of the shop, sword already swinging in a wide arc. He catches twin looks of surprise before the pair of Possessed are closing in on him, an inhuman hissing filling the room. No guns so far. That’s a good sign. Yunho wishes  _ he _ could have one to end these things from a distance, but it wasn’t realistic to keep a steady stream of bullets that then had to be holy water-blessed, not to mention how he can’t even stomach the thought of having to retrieve them after use. Archaic as it seemed, he’s plenty happy with his sword.

Speaking of which...Yunho sends a patronizing smile to the two Possessed, who are now facing him at the front door of the shop, gives them a “Rookie mistake,” and watches as a shadow darts from the back room to relieve them of their heads. San has hardly broken a sweat.

“Let’s get out of here,” Yunho tells him. “Where there’s two Possessed, there has to be…”

He doesn’t finish with the “more” on the tip of his tongue, because San has already taken it upon himself to open the front door. Their “more” is six or so Possessed who had been gathered on the other side of the street, now turning to them with eyes as black as the void.

“Out the way we came?” San asks, voice drawn tight.

“Please.”

There’s no time to scale the building they’d dropped down from without their pursuers catching up. Once they’re back out the crumbling wall, they sprint behind three more buildings before cutting back to the street, racing in a straight shot toward the town square.

“How are we getting a signal to Hongjoong?” San asks, trying to keep his breathing steady as he runs.

It’s a fair question. Originally, Yunho thought they could get away with meeting up in person and double-backing to the city gates. Now he’s not so sure. He keeps his gaze raking up and down passing buildings and lets the city do its part to speak back to him. Paces away from the square, a message comes.

He gestures to the clocktower with a half-winded “There,” and San doesn’t need words to understand.

After one last “I’ll be fast,” he’s darting to the tower’s base, scaling its sides with found footholds in the stone that only his eyes can see. Yunho anxiously twists his fingers together as he watches, both because of the height and the time. They’d been fast, but not fast enough to buy the entire time they need. Any minute now...there.

The first of the Possessed bursts into the clearing with a snarl twisted into its face and a sharpened shard of metal clutched in its hands. Yunho meets it with a defiant swing of his blade, throwing the demon off balance enough to land a fatal strike across its ribs. Lucky.

The others don’t come at him one by one. When they close the distance, they throw everything they have at him, putting Yunho entirely on the defensive. There's no room for him to deal an answering blow when he’s making sure each of theirs isn’t the last one he sees. He’s not ready for the New World just yet, not when Hongjoong is still counting on him.

Somewhere high above his head, Yunho hears the telltale sound of a flare being set off. On his next twist, he manages to spot a streak of red smoke arcing across the sky in the direction of the city gates. San had made it to the top without cracking his skull open, after all. A hiss of pain escapes Yunho’s lips as one of the Possessed’s weapons lands a glancing blow against his arm, leaving a much darker streak of red than the one above their heads. He can hold them back for a little while longer. He just needs San to ━

An explosion sounds from behind him, making him briefly stumble. One of the Possessed had broken off from the pack to take interest in San’s descent down the clocktower  ━  a clocktower that no longer had any remaining footholds at its base, thanks to the demon’s soft spot for military-grade explosives.

San is stuck. Yunho can’t move to help him. If ever there was something that qualified as an emergency, this was it. Which is why, instead of going for the next swing, Yunho swiftly slices his thumb open on his blade and presses the open wound to the amulet he yanks from his pocket. Hongjoong had insisted he save it for when it was absolutely necessary, explaining how he had received only a few as a gift. Surely, he would agree with Yunho here.

A ring of red flashes around the amulet, which goes burning hot for a split second before it turns to ash. The remaining Possessed are thrown back as if from an invisible wave of energy, temporarily out of commission. It won’t last long, but it will be enough.

Yunho quickly returns his sword to its sheath and stands at the clocktower’s base. He can see San holding on with visibly shaking limbs, though whether that’s from either the height or the exertion setting in Yunho can’t say for sure. “It’s safe!” he calls up. “I’ve got you!”

He holds out his arms, squaring his knees for the impact, and thankfully only loses part of his balance when San lets himself drop the remaining distance. He looks up from the bridal-style catch with a sarcastic “My hero” and a poorly concealed laugh, which Yunho  _ almost _ drops him for before he deems getting out of here a much more important priority.

The flare does its job, which means their efforts haven’t been for naught. Minutes into putting distance between themselves and the incapacitated demons, Yunho and San run across the others, who easily match their pace. They hadn’t been the only ones running.

“Trouble?” Hongjoong asks.

“It could have been worse. We still managed to get enough supplies to last us a while.”

“That counts for something.” A loud shriek echoes down the street behind them before they take a sharp turn, making Hongjoong grimace. “Our distraction worked a little too well. Any ideas for losing our tail?”

“If you don’t mind cutting this path off, I’ve got something,” Mingi chimes in. “See all that scaffolding?”

Yunho does, now that he mentions it. He knows from experience that it’s none too stable, and judging by how much the road bottlenecks up ahead...it just might work.

“I’ll set the charges,” Wooyoung confirms. He’s already darting ahead as he says it, pulling said charges from his pack and quickly arming a set of three around the scaffolding’s base. When the rest of them slow, he waves them off. “Go on ahead. I’ll stay for a second to make sure the countdown ━ ”

“You absolutely will not,” San cuts him off. He drags Wooyoung firmly by the ear until the other man concedes, hand held protectively over said ear. Just as well. This way, Yunho didn’t have to do it himself. There’s not about to be any martyrs here, not on his watch.

The second they’re on a different street, Wooyoung hits the detonator. A loud blast goes off just too close for comfort, followed by the groaning of splitting wood before the scaffolding comes toppling down in a ruined heap. There’s no way they’ll be followed now. At least for the moment, they’re safe and stocked up.

Yunho will count that as a win.

Ω

The cave is better than he’d expected, Hongjoong concedes. It’s not quite broken into, doesn’t quite feel like home, but it will do.

Before all of this, the cave must have been the entrance to a mining shaft. The remnants of wooden structural supports and workers’ gear dot the insides, and the extra side room that had been blasted out makes for a good sleeping area tucked away from the cave mouth. What used to be the entrance to tunnels burrowing further into the earth are collapsed and inaccessible, but that will get no complaints from Hongjoong. He’d much rather have one entrance to defend than have to worry about who knows what crawling out from the shadows.

The others are working on moving themselves into their new space, Hongjoong included. Normally, they’d still be riding the high of another victory in the city today, but he can see the fatigue hanging over everyone’s heads that makes the excitement fizzle out too soon. He sees them  _ try _ , Yunho continuing to congratulate them with his gentle optimism, while San turns his smiles up to 100 whenever he sees an opportunity. But Hongjoong is well aware of the energy it takes to keep that sort of front up in the face of so many more attacks and no more direction on their next steps.

Still, they know how to pull their weight. San is in charge of food this time, while Hongjoong helps Wooyoung reinforce the interior’s supports with supplies lifted from their old camp. Outside, Yunho and Mingi are working in tandem to redraw the circle of sigils they use to keep themselves undetected, which requires equal amounts patience and blood.

The sigils aren’t powerful enough to stop a demon from getting through. They will, however, help the group stay out of sight unless a pursuer knows exactly what to look for. Every little bit counts when they’re traveling with Hongjoong, who is the human equivalent of a target drawn on their backs.

“This one finished?” Wooyoung asks him, tapping experimentally on the wooden archway.

Hongjoong squints at it a long moment before deciding, “Let’s add another few planks to the sides. I don’t want it collapsing on our heads.”

“Got it. If I hold this in place…?”

“I’ll grab more nails.”

Hongjoong slips back out of the cave to where their piles of unsorted supplies are, noting with pleased surprise how well the sigils are coming along. “Nice work, you two,” he tells the pair, to which Mingi gives him a tired pout.

“Next time, you can be the one to bleed out over the ground.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Hongjoong squats down to pull out a handful of nails from one pile. When he stands up, he winces against the headrush that blooms at the base of his skull, shaking his head to try and clear the sensation.

“Hongjoong? You okay?” Yunho asks him, pausing before the next sigil.

“Fine,” he says with a lot more conviction than he feels. The headrush is quickly developing into a splitting headache, which makes him bite back a frustrated groan. “Migraine, maybe. I think I just...might need to…”

_ Lie down a minute _ , he’s going to say, which turns out to be rather ironic. One moment he’s on his feet watching Yunho’s eyes widen and Mingi start to rush forward. Then suddenly he’s pitching forward with a high-pitched ringing at the edges of his hearing, vision going fuzzy even before he can hit the ground.

For a heartbeat, darkness. Then Hongjoong’s senses explode in fireworks of images and sensations, nearly overloading him with the amount of information pushed at once across that connection. Disjointed colors and sounds run together until they’re one sheet of crystalizing static, one collection of assembled instructions traced on the back of Hongjoong’s eyelids, and he can hear Teliko’s faint voice asking him, “Do you understand?”

In his mind, he reaches for the sound. She may not be there in the flesh, but he can feel his spirit’s presence close to him, emanating that aura of certainty that had injected hope back into his veins the day she’d intertwined his fate with hers.  _ So _ close…

Her voice fades to silence. The explosions of light and color go cold. The words on his eyelids burn to ash, leaving their memory alongside a sharp pain that jolts him back to ━

“Hongjoong? Hongjoong!”

He can’t remember actually closing his eyes, but now they’re fluttering open to reveal an open expanse of sky. That sheet of blue is quickly eclipsed by Wooyoung’s worried face, the other man’s expression losing only some of its panic when he sees Hongjoong’s gaze meeting his.

Hongjoong presses his fingers against the phantom remnants of a headache as he sits back up. And...everyone is here, actually. They surround him in a worried circle, which he would be more embarrassed about if he wasn’t so overwhelmed by what he’s seen. After all this time, to finally hear that voice again...it’s hard to pin down what he’s feeling.

“She spoke to you, didn’t she?” Yunho is looking at him intently, restrained hope clear in his expression. It’s almost scary sometimes, how he can read Hongjoong so easily. He wonders how much of that is learned and how much is his own transparency.

“She did,” Hongjoong tells them. He can’t help the touch of wonder that colors his voice. “She figured out the rest of the plan. If we find the two artifacts of power she showed me, guarded by other spirits, we can use them to perform what Teliko’s calling a Grand Exorcism at her old temple. The demons in this plane get destroyed, any remaining Possessed’s hosts move on to the New World, and the survivors follow one way or another.”

He looks at them seriously. “With the demons banished from this plane and everyone safely in the next, with that many layers of the veil in between…”

“The cycle is broken,” San finishes for him, eyes wide.

“Exactly.” Hongjoong lets it sink in a few moments like it had for him. He watches as long-faded excitement washes over each of their faces, an old flame finally reignited with this new promise of a way forward.

That flame is why Hongjoong leaves it there. It’s why he chooses to keep to himself the other side of the looking glass: the creeping doubt he’s had for so long that he’d never get another vision, the sharp sting of abandonment he’d felt yet again when she’d cut him off without warning. In some ways, being so near to her had made that sting even more painful. But this far into the commitment he’d made? This far into convincing this group of people he loves that this is the only way forward? He needs to see this to the end. He needs to wear confidence on his sleeve like it’s going out of style. For all their sakes.

“I know it’s not ideal, but we need to split up into teams,” Hongjoong continues. “There’s too much ground to cover otherwise. I can tell you the directions I’ve seen, but each team will need to take on an artifact.”

“Our strength is in numbers,” Wooyoung shoots back. “Why can’t we go as a full group to each one?”

“Because that’s time we don’t have. You’ve seen how frequently we’re getting ambushed by demons nowadays.”

“Exactly. Which is why we should stick together, so we don’t all end up possessed or dead.”

At another time, in another place, Hongjoong might have appreciated the challenge. Wooyoung has always been the first to pick at the open holes in his plans, to make sure he’s thinking things through. Now, when those misgivings hit a little too close to home, he’s not in the mood to hear it. He tries not to let the pulse of annoyance show on his face.

San, on the other hand, seems to have no such qualms. “That’s it,” he snaps at Wooyoung, quickly rising to his feet. “I get that you want to play devil’s advocate, but lately it’s been every single conversation.”

Wooyoung’s eyes dart around the rest of the circle, trying to read their reactions, before he zeroes back in on San with a huff. “Maybe because it’s worth considering alternatives to big choices, and every choice we’ve made lately has seemed like a big one. You’re telling me you want to be split up again?”

“It’s not about what I ━ ”

“Yes, it is! If we start blindly taking orders without talking them through, this was all for nothing. You disagree?”

San’s expression is ice. “I think you should for once in your life shut up and have some faith in Hongjoong. You of all people ━ ”

He cuts himself off this time, stalking away with a harsh “I’m going to get some air” before anyone else can get a word in. It takes only a second longer for Wooyoung to storm off in the opposite direction without even an attempt at an excuse.

A lingering silence hangs over the remaining three in the wake of the sudden confrontation. Hongjoong can almost feel his headache returning despite the previous one being supernatural in origin, and he forces himself to take a long breath. This will pass. In the scheme of things, this is probably his most manageable problem right now.

“Should I go check on them?” Mingi asks, but Hongjoong shakes his head.

“No, let them cool off. They’re both on edge since they don’t want to be separated for something like this.”

Which he can understand, truly. It’s meant as an observation rather than a criticism. A supply run is one thing, but a final push to save the world? Hongjoong wouldn't want to do that without his other half, either. That was the sort of thing you didn’t come back from.

“We could let them handle one of the artifacts themselves,” Hongjoong suggests. “They’d be in a better headspace, and that would leave the three of us to handle the second.”

“Works for me,” Yunho agrees. Them more carefully, he adds, “You know, it wouldn't hurt to have more help for this. I know that you and Seonghwa have your differences, but...”

“He made his choice, and I made mine,” Hongjoong cuts in. It’s annoying, the way he still instinctively bristles at the name. “If he wanted to help, he would have left the Crusaders years ago. Forget it.”

“Your call,” Yunho says with a shrug, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with him. “Get some more rest while you can, okay?”

“No time for that. I still have supports to finish, and the clock is ticking.”

He can already see the frown forming on Yunho’s face, hear the protests Mingi is about to give, so Hongjoong turns before either of those can start. “Make sure to finish the sigils!” he calls to them, and then he’s stepping back inside the mouth of the cave to breathe.

Wooyoung must have chosen somewhere else to stew, because the space is silent. If only for a few minutes, Hongjoong will pull out the boxes he’s stuffed full with doubt and frustration and spiraling fear, and he’ll air them dry with shaking arms clutched too tightly around his middle. This is what he’d waited for, isn’t it? Finally, a light on the horizon, a raincloud in the desert.

Everything is fine. He’s fine. For them, he has to be.

Ω

Wooyoung can’t sleep. His body is aching and sore from the past few days, muscles stretched just past the point of overexertion, and he can’t seem to find quite a comfortable spot to doze off in this new hideout. But really, he could have dealt with both of those without an issue. No, the strain holding Wooyoung back from a full night’s sleep is much more mental than physical in nature.

He feels like an asshole for lashing out at two of the people closest to him, not to mention how much of a petulant child he’s made himself seem. His misgivings had been real ones, sure, but that entire conversation...it settles uncomfortably in his stomach. And the thought of what lies ahead, what he fears he could lose, no matter how selfish it might be…

A rustling noise sounds from the opposite edge of the cave. Wooyoung thinks nothing of it until there’s soft footsteps padding over the ground and a shadow looming over him, just faintly illuminated by moonlight slithering through the entrance. He opens his mouth to call for the others until San’s voice asks softly, “Still awake?”

Something catches in Wooyoung’s throat. He mutters some nonsensical affirmative, and the other man wordlessly slips in beside him. San’s feet are still cold from the walk across the ground, making Wooyoung shiver, but otherwise he curls into the sudden tangle of limbs like it’s a second home. The steady pulse of a heartbeat now pressed against his cheek pulls him closer to sleep than he’s been all night.

Touch says any more than a verbal apology ever could. Wooyoung can feel the “I’m sorry” in the way San laces their fingers together, shared between them like a secret. Wooyoung squeezes back with a silent “So am I”.

Maybe once, he would have felt self-conscious over the open show of affection with the others so close. Part of him still wishes they could have a moment to breathe, a moment of real privacy and no reservations between them. For now, he’ll take this small circle of friends he trusts implicitly as the closest thing to that privacy.

“I hate this,” San admits in a whisper. “Seeing the hope sucked out of everyone is the worst. After Hongjoong’s vision, I thought I’d be excited, but I just...I don’t know. I’m tired of everything. Some days I don’t even feel like myself anymore.”

And Wooyoung  _ knows _ how important these moments are, how reluctant the other can be to open up when what’s beneath the mask isn’t pretty, which is why he fights harder against the pull of sleep.

“It’s not just you,” he whispers back, words only slurring a little around the edges. “The others will understand if you’re tired. And I think you still seem like yourself, so. Whatever that’s worth.”

“Maybe a little something,” San concedes, the hint of a smile clear in his voice. When Wooyoung can’t hold back a yawn, a tremble of laughter runs through San’s body. “Get some sleep,” he says gently.

_ You’d better, too,  _ Wooyoung wants to chide him, but he’s already drifting off, battle lost. His body has relaxed on its own accord until it’s practically melting into the makeshift nest of blankets and San. He hardly registers the light press of lips to the top of his head before he slips away.

Ω

San doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He feels jumpy, a nervous sort of energy invading his insides that he tries to pass off as being pumped up for the work they have ahead of them.

Either the others are too in their own heads to notice the frantic edge to his smiles or he’s a better actor than he thought, because no one comments on his behavior. If anything, being around him seems to shake most of them out of the cloud of doom and gloom that’s fallen over the camp. Perhaps he’s earned the title of moodmaker, after all.

“Well, this is it,” Hongjoong tells them. “We all know what we need to do. Get the artifacts, stay safe, and regroup back here once we’re done. It’s a lot to ask of you, and I can’t say for sure what dangers we’ll face along the way, but if anyone can pull it off? It’ll be us.” For a long moment, he pauses. “Thank you for trusting me. I know it isn’t always easy, but...thank you. Let’s see each other again soon.”

This should be the moment when they part ways. They should head toward their destinations with shoulders set, eyes full of steel, and heads held high. But now that the moment has come, no one seems to want to take the first step. They’ve probably heard the same thing San has, the one ugly truth spoken only by omission. If something goes wrong, if this entire plan turns out to be more complicated than they’d foreseen...there will be no way to know if half of them aren’t coming back.

So San plasters another wide smile on his face, clears his throat, and says loudly, “Last ones back have to be on laundry duty for the next month. If anything is going to motivate us, that’ll be it.”

Across from him, Yunho laughs at the sudden competition, and Hongjoong’s lips pull up in what’s almost (almost!) a smile.

“If you really want to wash everyone’s underwear that badly, you could have asked,” Mingi eggs San on. It’s a challenge he’ll gladly accept, if one shared glance with Wooyoung is any confirmation.

Mood lifted, at least for the moment, they exchange their last goodbyes. Hongjoong allows San a rare embrace, albeit a quick one, and Mingi drags him into a rough approximation of his own. If San spends an extra minute with Yunho, basking in his two weaknesses of warm hugs and attention, no one has to know. (“Don’t make me cry, you tree,” he warns when he sees the sheen over Yunho’s eyes, blinking back a tear or two of his own.)

Then they really do take that first step. And another, and another. Only when the others are out of sight does San let the smile on his face settle into something more natural, less forced.

“You did well,” Wooyoung reassures him with a tenderness he doesn’t always show. San indulges himself with taking his hand for a minute (or ten) as he finally prepares  _ himself  _ for the journey.

There’s a feeling in his chest that few things will be the same when they meet again. He’ll fight to make sure this is one of them.

Ω

For all the tension and dramatics that had led up to it, Mingi finds that their trek isn’t half as bad as he’d assumed it would be. They’ve only run into the occasional lone Possessed, and the world hasn’t suddenly collapsed around them.

He’s still not entirely comfortable with being split up, but he knows San and Wooyoung can handle themselves. He also knows that despite the ease of the journey so far, time isn’t something they have in abundance, so he agrees it’s a necessary evil. Selfishly, he’s glad to be in the half traveling with Hongjoong. He’d much rather be the first to know if their leader has another vision than be working off the memory of secondhand directions.

And as for Hongjoong himself...well, Mingi isn’t the one in their little team who’s known him the longest. Some things he doesn’t think are his place to say. All he knows is that he can’t imagine how exhausted he’d be living as some kind of Chosen One this whole time and not being given clear instructions on how to save the world. If Hongjoong seems quieter than he used to, a little more distant, then Mingi can’t exactly blame him.

This far east, the landscape is like nothing Mingi’s seen in a while. He’s grown used to the semi-wasteland they’ve kept themselves to for the past year. There’s still enough remnants of nature to sustain them in that wasteland, but it’s like demons have been sucking life from the Earth itself. (Maybe they are. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d run into a nasty new breed with a new set of ways to make their lives more difficult.)

Here, though, it’s less of a wasteland and more of an alpine hike. The mountain peaks in the distance have fingers extended with a long reach, shooting up rocky walls and jagged formations along their path. Conversations echo almost uncomfortably loud off of the stone. And for better or for worse, the narrow channels funnel them in very limited directions without leaving them much choice in the matter of where to go.

That unfortunate bottleneck leads them straight to the mouth of an enclosed mountain pass that makes the hairs on the back of Mingi’s neck instinctively stand on end. There’s something sinister about the yawning darkness before them.

“And you’re  _ sure _ we have to go this way?” Mingi checks.

“I saw it in my vision,” Hongjoong says, sounding none too happy about it. “It’s the only way through to the other side of the mountains.”

Well, not much of a choice here, then. Mingi takes a step, intent on powering forward into the pass before his courage fails him, but Yunho quickly pulls him back.

“Wait,” he insists. “See the markings around the entrance? I’ll bet the minute we step inside, it smells like ozone, too.”

Hongjoong’s expression immediately darkens. “One of those illusion demons, then. This must be its nest.”

Shit. The ghost of a memory tugs at Mingi’s brain from when Wooyoung had told him about this demon’s brand of Hell. They were powerful creatures, strong enough to easily kill the three of them if they entered at once, but that power came with a caveat: if their prey could best a conjured shade of the person they most dearly trusted in combat, such a demon would be left vulnerable. If the battle was lost, they ate their prey whole. And that battle? The demon would do anything in its power to make it as cruel as possible.

At the time, Mingi had hoped to never meet one in the flesh. It almost seems like that wish is the exact bad luck that led them straight to this nest.

“I’ll go,” Hongjoong says suddenly, holding up a hand when the others start to protest. The smile on his face is a sour, half-baked thing. “I’m Chosen, remember? I’m supposed to be the one doing what no one else wants to do.”

If Mingi felt it was his place, he might have made a comment that even though power like that came with responsibility, nowhere was it written that such responsibility had to be shouldered alone. Instead, he gives his leader a stilted “Be careful” that’s acknowledged with a nod.

He thinks that’s the end of it, but then Yunho is stepping forward with a soft “Hongjoong…” and Hongjoong’s expression falters. “Whatever happens in there,” Yunho tells him, “remember it’s not real. It’s not on you.”

It feels like there’s something more to the words that Mingi isn’t privy to. Whatever that something is, it makes Hongjoong turn back around with a muttered “Thanks” before he’s disappearing into the tunnel of stone. The shadows almost seem to swallow him halfway through, though that’s hopefully just a trick of the light.

All they can do now is wait.

Ω

“My turn. Least favorite demon memory?”

Yunho pauses for a moment, considering. “Back when we were looking for a place to set up our first camp, probably? I somehow missed that the woman who gave us directions was possessed, nearly got the two of us killed, and Hongjoong didn't let me lead a team for nearly a month.”

Mingi really does try to hold in his laughter. He’s mostly unsuccessful. “San didn’t let you go two minutes without making some babysitting comment, did he?”

“Please don’t remind me.”

They lapse back into silence. The quiet itself isn’t uncomfortable  ━ they’ve been friends too long for that  ━  but it does make the time slipping by seem much more pronounced. Judging by the deepening worry lines between Yunho’s brows, Mingi isn’t the only one growing unsettled.

“How long before we start to worry?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Yunho admits. “By now I would have thought…”

He trails off suddenly, getting to his feet. Mingi follows his movements just in time to see a figure materialize from the shadows, and realizes with a wave of relief that it’s Hongjoong. He’s safe.

Except...there’s a haunted sheen to his eyes that hadn’t been there before, a step past the exhaustion that used to fill that space alone. Despite the curiosity that rears its head, Mingi knows better than to ask what happened. “Feeling okay?” he asks instead, and Hongjoong inclines his head in what will have to be taken as an answer.

“It’s safe now,” Hongjoong says. “We can pass through to the other side. No more demon.”

Sometimes Mingi forgets just how powerful Hongjoong’s blessing from his spirit had made him. Maybe he and Yunho were foolish to be worried in the first place. Maybe, illusions or not, that demon had never stood a chance. Either way, it’s over.

Hongjoong leads the way back inside, and Mingi feels himself shiver as they, too, are swallowed by the shadows.

Ω

San is about ninety-five percent sure he’s going to be cackling at Mingi doing his laundry for the foreseeable future.

He and Wooyoung had booked it due north for the sake of being petty, and with that energy they’d made excellent time. The Possessed put up a few speed bumps along the way, of course, but they’re nowhere near as organized as they were nearer to the city. Comparatively, it’s almost an improvement. (Though, as San notes the sharp increase in attacks near the end of their journey, he has a feeling it won’t last.)

When they come across the clearing Hongjoong had described, San is convinced they’re mistaken. It’s not Hongjoong or the visions that he doesn’t trust; it’s their luck. Having it run gold for this long, despite the relatively tame distance of their journey, feels like they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. But sure enough, a few drops of mortal blood on a half-hidden carved sigil has the ground shifting beneath their feet to reveal a set of stairs leading deeper beneath the surface. Wooyoung gestures in that direction with a very noble “You first” that San pretends he wasn’t going to say himself.

At the base of the stairs, a narrow tunnel opens up into what Hongjoong had accurately described as a temple. The interior is manmade, all marble and silver-veined quartz, and the elegance of its design makes it clear that this used to be somewhere very important to a lot of people. Whoever had worshipped the spirit who used to  ━ still  does?  ━  reside here spared no expense. As they navigate their way to the temple’s central chamber, it almost feels foolish to watch their backs for enemies with how regal their surroundings are. It’s a welcome change to be demon-free.

A circular dais stands in the focal point of the central chamber, reflecting small beams of light from above in crystalline shimmers. Just behind it stands a marble statue of who San assumes to be the temple’s spirit: an ageless looking woman with wild hair threaded around coils of ivy. And on top of the dais, much to his surprise, is the spyglass they’ve been sent here to find. He and Wooyoung allow themselves to get within a foot of the artifact before they both hesitate, minds running yet again through a spiel of ‘too good to be true’.

“So, um…” Wooyoung makes eye contact with the statue before he must deem it too awkward, eyes flitting aimlessly around the temple’s interior. “We kind of need to take this? It’s for one of the Chosen. Maybe you know Teliko? She chose Hongjoong, and Hongjoong chose us to get the spyglass so we can do this big exorcism and save the world. Please?”

The absolute silence that follows his rambling isn’t entirely unexpected. It’s also pretty funny. “As lovely as that speech was, she’s probably not even here,” San says.

“You sure about that?”

“Who else is going to tell us?”

Wooyoung takes a step back, hands up in a silent “Be my guest,” and San admittedly braces himself before he snatches the spyglass from its resting place. And...nothing. He waves it in front of Wooyoung’s offended expression with a grin. “See? It’s all about confidence. Piece of ━ ”

“What was that?”

Something in the atmosphere has shifted. The doorway that they entered through slides shut. Somewhere they can’t see, a mechanism releases with an audible  _ click _ . And this detail is definitely San’s imagination, but the statue before them suddenly doesn’t look so friendly.

“Well, this isn’t good.”

Wooyoung looks at him like he’s the world’s biggest idiot. “You think?” Then, less sarcastically, “Look for another exit. Maybe there’s a different door.”

San almost points out that even if there was, it’s probably sealed shut like the first. Before the words can form, he freezes, suddenly realizing that the silence surrounding them is no longer silence. In fact, it sounds a whole lot like ...

One after another, narrow slots open on each of the walls. That’s all the warning they get before the faint rushing San had picked up on turns into a roar, and water bursts forth from the slots in matching waterfalls.

“Hey, Wooyoung.” San doesn’t even try to fight back his grimace. “These spirits are all supposed to be associated with nature, right?”

“Yep.”

“Fantastic.”

This temple  _ hadn’t _ lost the memory of the being it was built to worship, it would seem. The water is already up to their ankles and not even a minute has passed. They need an exit, and they need to find it now.

“We come in peace! Killing us is only going to help the demons, and you wouldn’t want that, would you? We’re the good guys!”

Or they could try to grovel to the silent presence that had ignored their earlier attempt at contact altogether and made it clear they were better off drowned.

Wooyoung still isn’t stopping. “If you’d just let us explain ━ !”

“She’s not going to listen,” San finally cuts him off. “Being tied to this place while the world falls outside and never choosing a champion probably twisted her already. A spirit who’s given up hope isn’t going to listen to two humans she’s never seen before.”

And, okay, San knows he’s  _ right _ . That doesn’t make it any less of a problem that there’s no way out and water up past their thighs.

“Guess we’re going for a swim,” Wooyoung mutters.

San makes it halfway to the wall slogging through the rising pool before it gets high enough that he has to swim, spyglass still clutched tightly in one hand. There’s no other door. Normally, he’d say to follow the source of the water, but those slots are too small for even him to squeeze through.

“Where does all this water go once we’re dead?” Wooyoung calls over the sound of the waterfalls.

“I don’t know. Back out the walls?” That wouldn’t make much sense, though, if the deathtrap was meant to protect the temple along with the artifact. Pushing water out those same openings would assumedly flood the rest of the building. If it can’t go out the sides, that only leaves...

“Wooyoung, can you see anything on the ceiling? A pipe, maybe?” San kicks his way back to the center of the room while he waits for his answer, doing his best to keep his head above water. There’s not a lot of space left between the water level and the marble above. He hopes his hunch isn’t leading him wrong.

“There’s a grate up there!” Wooyoung says suddenly. When he sees San made it back, he pulls him closer and points to a spot partly obscured by shadows.

It’s there. It’s just...sealed shut. Water can make it through those holes; not a person. They have one last piece of the puzzle and one last minute of air.

“Maybe there’s a release for the grate,” San tries. “A button? No, that feels too modern for this place.”

“How about a lever?”

San follows Wooyoung’s finger again to the opposite wall, and there. He sees it. One last piece of the puzzle, one last minute of air, and one of them who’s a faster swimmer.

“Take this,” San tells him, shoving the artifact and his pack into Wooyoung’s hands. “Wait by the grate.”

“San ━ ”

“I’ll be right back.” There’s no time to say any of what he wants to say, to even commit this last expression to memory. San takes one last gulp of air before the water goes over his head, and then he swims.

Even with the extra weight removed, the lever is a fair distance away. When he makes contact with the wall, a faint burn is settling into his lungs. But San’s not going to give in to the fear thumping against his ribcage when he’s not the only one whose life is at stake here. He braces his feet against the wall, wraps two hands around the lever, and  _ pulls _ .

The old cogs resist his effort at first, moving as if through mud, but finally something unsticks. San is kicking off the wall and swimming like a madman the moment he’s sure it’s going to stay that way. The burn in his lungs has grown into a full-fledged fire.

He can do this. Just a few strokes more and he’ll make it to the open grate. He can ignore the way his heart has seized in his chest, the way his hand limply reaches toward the surface with no strength behind the motion.

A hand grips his own and yanks him out of the water and onto solid ground. San chokes out what feels like an ocean before inhaling oxygen with a greedy gasp.

“I don’t think that qualifies as ‘right back’,” Wooyoung chides him, though his hands shake when he pulls San back to his feet.

“Sorry. Thanks. Holy shit.”

“It’s not over yet.”

San gives himself exactly three seconds to take in the earthy tunnel before them, perpendicular to the open grate, and the water that still insists on following them into their getaway route. Then he and Wooyoung are running like hell.

Maybe ‘tunnel’ is the wrong word for his place, because there’s nothing artificial about it in the least. As they run, every surface becomes a hazard as the very Earth rises up against them. Wild, twisting roots reach out to trip them and slow their progress, while sinkholes open in multitudes right where they plan on putting their feet. All the while, water rushes just behind their backs as it threatens to drag them back to its depths.

That doesn’t stop them. San and Wooyoung move together like breathing. No words are exchanged as they pull each other forward, compensate for a stumble, shove one another out of harm’s way. Running a gauntlet like this, San wouldn’t have picked anyone else for the challenge.

Not soon enough, the tunnel ends. San pushes himself even faster into the light at the end, thighs protesting, and suddenly there's no more ground beneath his feet.

_ Not like this _ , he thinks with sudden horror, but suddenly Wooyoung is pulling him back to safety. They stand together on the ledge by the tunnel exit and watch with heaving breaths as a rush of water roars out of the opening into the basin below. Safe at last.

San can’t stop staring at the drop-off. How stupid would it have been, to survive all of that and then fall to his death because he ran too fast for his own good?

“Hey,” Wooyoung asks him, “do you want this back?”

When San looks over, he sees his waterlogged pack in Wooyoung’s hands, spyglass sticking out of the corner. He sees the way Wooyoung’s hair and clothes have awkwardly clumped together in their dampness, dropping puddles onto the ground. That coupled with the sheer rush of not being belly-up, and San just...loses it. He laughs until his stomach hurts, finding it even funnier when Wooyoung joins in with a high-pitched cackle.

They’re gross, they’re exhausted, they look like a pair of absolute lunatics, and holy hell San feels like his chest might burst. There’s nothing he can do to resist pulling the other man in close, ignoring his half-hearted protests about the water and grinning with absolute abandon against his mouth.

What a day to be alive.

Ω

When late evening rolls around, Hongjoong finally tells them to set up camp, and Yunho revels in the break. He’s all for progress, all for putting his legs to the grind on a good hike, but their path through the mountains has started to slant dramatically uphill. It’s getting harder the further they go to remind himself that it will be an easier journey back.

They tuck themselves against the cover of a rocky crag and set up blankets and a fire. Or, rather, Hongjoong handles that setup while Yunho and Mingi yet again end up on sigil-drawing duty. Yunho would like to say it’s second nature by now, the blade biting into his hand, and in a way that’s true. But the habit of the action still hasn’t reduced the sting. Still, it’s a better option than Hongjoong bleeding out over the Earth and accidentally drawing demons  _ in _ with his spirit-touched blood. That theory isn’t one they ever intend on testing.

“I’ll take first watch,” Yunho volunteers when they’re finished, already bandaging up the slice across his palm. “You two get some sleep.”

Mingi thumps him twice on the shoulder, grateful, and heads straight for his own blanket. Hongjoong, however, looks about as far from a restful night’s sleep as someone can be. His shoulders are drawn together in that tense way Yunho has learned means he wants to say something but isn’t sure how to broach the subject.

“Something on your mind?” Yunho prompts him.

“If you have a minute or two.” He hesitates. “Alone?”

Thankfully, Mingi has enough sense to pretend like he hasn’t heard anything. He turns to lay with his back to them as Yunho leads Hongjoong several paces from the camp.

For a long moment, they stare at the moon in silence. There’s a certain tranquility that comes with turning one’s full attention to the skies, a detachment from this plane to see a beauty that will continue regardless of whether or not every last mortal falls silent. And maybe that’s far more poetic than what the situation calls for, but Yunho will take a little poetry when the darkness has done its best to render such a thing obsolete.

“When I killed that demon,” Hongjoong finally starts, “I...you know what I had to do.”

Yunho would be lying if he said he was surprised this is what was eating Hongjoong up inside. He’d seen his eyes when he stepped back out of that cave. He’d known it wasn’t a nightmare that would soon be forgotten. Gently, he says, “I know ending Seonghwa’s life was hard, even if it wasn’t really him, but ━ ”

“Seonghwa?” Genuine surprise flashes across Hongjoong’s face for a moment. “No, not Seonghwa. I had to kill  _ you _ .”

Oh. “Oh.”

That’s...not what Yunho expected at all. He’s not quite sure what to make of his reaction to the admission. Does it make sense to be mildly horrified at the false copy of himself being killed by a friend, while at the same time being secretly glad at the fact that he’d been chosen as Hongjoong’s most trusted confidant? With every thought, he seems to alternate back and forth between the two.

“I don’t know if I can talk about it,” Hongjoong continues. “I don’t know if you want to hear it. But hell, Yunho. I…”

The breath he takes is more ragged than Yunho expects. Yunho’s own body itches to touch, to reassure, but he fights down the urge. This is about Hongjoong’s needs, not his, and he knows better than to intrude on his personal space.

“Illusion or not, necessary or not, a friend still died by my hands. It makes me sick even thinking about it.”

“You did what you had to,” Yunho reassures him. Why is this tearing him up, of all things, when Yunho is alive and well right next to him? Is there something more to the fight Hongjoong isn’t saying? Is it more about their situation and not the demon at all? “You know I’d never hate you for something like that. Before you went in, I told you not to feel guilty for whatever happened next. Stop wondering what you could have done differently.”

“I...guess you’re right.”

Even after he says it, there’s a lengthy pause before some of the tension leaves Hongjoong’s body. His eyes give away that he still has one foot stuck in his memories, but it’s an improvement. Yunho will take it. Only, if there’s a chance…

“Anything else you want to talk about?”

“Hmm? No, that was it.”

Hongjoong’s eyes dart away from meeting his a beat too quickly to be entirely honest. Not unexpected, but Yunho feels disappointment tug at his gut. He still isn’t going to press. He bids Hongjoong goodnight with one half-returned smile and settles in for his shift on watch.

The ground where he takes a seat isn’t exactly the most comfortable. Nor is the slight breeze that’s just cold enough to make him shiver through his clothes. At least he has good company: Yunho has always found the stars to be both beautiful distractions and wonderful listeners.

“Mind if I join you?”

Yunho startles at the sound before he recognizes Mingi’s voice. For a little while longer at least, he’s not left with only celestial company. He readily pats the ground beside him, where Mingi swiftly takes up residence.

“So,” Mingi tells him. “Hongjoong.”

“We’re not that far away from camp. He might still be able to hear you.”

“He was out like a light the second he was horizontal. Whatever you said must have been enough to help.”

Yunho doesn’t know about  _ that _ . Still, he supposes a little help is better than nothing, if that’s really what he’d done.

“Listen…” Mingi lowers his voice even further, despite being the one to divulge their other companion’s sleeping state. “You’ve known Hongjoong longer than I have, so stop me if you think I’m crazy. I’m just getting worried about him lately. Stress is one thing, and I know he doesn’t always like to open up to everyone, but...you know.”

He does. He does, and it hurts to admit it. “You’re not crazy. It’s like he’s dug out this pit that he’s letting himself fall into. I know there’s something going on in his head, but he deflects when I try to ask him.”

“So what do we do?”

And isn’t that a million dollar question? “Whatever we can,” he says. “We can’t press him on it, because that only pushes him away. We can’t go digging for it, because there’s nothing to dig through. All we can do is remind Hongjoong that we’re here for him.”

Yunho’s eyes can’t help but be pulled back up to the wide expanse of sky above them. He hopes with all his heart that Hongjoong can have those million stars as his only companions for tonight. Let him dream of a collection of lights so bright and warm that it casts out the darkness entirely.

Let him be at peace.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and Happy New Year!

Wooyoung knows they should be taking turns on watch. He knows, but he’s not exactly complaining. How can he, when he has his limbs splayed out with none of the usual unease, a familiar warmth pressed against his side, and eyes full of constellations he can’t even begin to name? It’s easy to forget they’re at the end of the world when this feels like something out of a dream. Still…

“One of us is going to be really pissed in a few hours when we haven’t started doing shifts.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” San drawls, which Wooyoung elbows him for. “Besides, that’s boring. And a waste of a perfectly good night.”

He’s not wrong. They’re still on guard for demons, technically, but everything about tonight makes it easy to relax. And as much as Wooyoung looks forward to the full group reconvening...this is nice, spending some time as just the two of them. With the fire crackling in the background and the moon painting San’s smile a pretty shade of blue, he can push everything that’s gone wrong to the back of his mind. His thoughts drift instead to what things might have been like had they met before the veil tore apart, or in a different life entirely. What must that feel like, wanting to be by someone’s side and having all the time in the world to stay there?

“You’re thinking too loudly,” San tells him with a nudge. “Come on. Perfectly good night, remember?”

“Then give me something else to talk about if you don’t want me thinking.”

Silence stretches out between them for a time. Had it not been for the rhythmic tapping of San’s fingers on Wooyoung’s wrist, he would have thought the other fell asleep thinking of an answer. Then, finally, “Tell me more about before we met. When you were still a Crusader.”

Now Wooyoung is the one left momentarily speechless. “All of a sudden?”

“We need to keep each other awake somehow. And now that it’s just us, I figured it’s as good a time as any?” His tapping slows until it’s nothing more than a light press of skin on skin. “Only if you want to.”

“No, I don’t mind, since it’s...you know, you. Just not something I’m used to talking about.”

It’s a part of himself that he likes to keep private, for the most part. San knowing is one of only two exceptions to that rule. But it’s still Wooyoung, still part of what makes him tick. He can’t say he particularly hates the thought of sharing the details with someone  ━ the  _ only  _ someone  ━ he trusts to keep them a secret. If for some reason this whole exorcism scheme goes sideways, he feels like someone else should at least know the whole truth.

“Before the demons came, the Crusaders were already an established group. They studied lore about spirits and demons, trained to channel energy from old artifacts of power, and they were the first to see the signs that the veil was coming down. I was one of the many people who joined up with them to train for battle whenever the demons would finally break through.”

Wooyoung pauses before admitting, “Honestly, when they did actually come, I was surprised. I joined up because I wanted to be a part of something and because I thought I’d look pretty kickass decked out in Defender gear, not because I actually thought we were counting down to the end of the world.”

He lets out a rather indignant squawk at the cheshire grin San is giving him. As if Wooyoung had been the only one blindsided! Or the only one who’d wanted to have a set of kickass armor, for that matter!

“ _ Anyway _ ,” he says pointedly, “after the demons came, training got more serious. A lot of lightweights dropped out of the program. I was training with another apprentice, Jongho, to potentially be matched as a Defender with one of the top Paladins at the Institute: Park Seonghwa.”

San’s eyes widen. “Oh shit. Hongjoong’s Seonghwa?”

“The same one. He knew Hongjoong from before. After Hongjoong became Chosen, he kept coming to see Seonghwa for self-defense lessons, information about spirits and demons, that sort of thing. They didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on everything. After a while, Jongho and I realized we didn’t see eye-to-eye with the Crusaders, either. We decided to leave.”

Wooyoung hesitates. He can still recall that day with perfect clarity, can still see the hurt bloom on Seonghwa’s face when he’d broken the news. It had almost been enough to make him stay. Almost.

“Jongho left for Haven since it was the only city still standing. Said he didn’t want anything to do with spirits or Chosen either, even when I tried to convince him. There was something about Hongjoong and his plan that was just...different. You know; that’s why you ended up joining, too. Seonghwa tried to talk me out of it, but I knew it was something I had to be a part of.”

“So Hongjoong knows, then. About your training.”

“He’s the only other one on the team besides you. I’ll never regret the time I spent with them, but I don’t like being judged for their reputation. Even by friends. It’s complicated.”

Wooyoung shrugs. “Really, I’m just grateful Hongjoong let me join him and Yunho in the first place, even when it didn’t exactly help the thin ice he was already on with Seonghwa. I can’t imagine still being there after all this time. None of the group campfires, none of the hit-and-miss supply runs.” He rolls his eyes at San’s feigned indignation. “Not meeting you, I  _ guess _ . That would suck a little.”

Wooyoung gets a full-out grin at the admission, quickly followed by the air being forced out of his lungs in a  _ whoosh _ when San abruptly plants himself on top of his stomach. “What are you doing?” he sputters when he can breathe again.

And in a flat monotone, San tells him, “I’m an incubus, come to suck out your soul in exchange for sexual favors.”

And...that’s quite enough of that. Wooyoung snorts and shoves him off, though the other man doesn’t go far. It’s nice to see San like this again, more like himself and less like the front he’s been putting up for group morale. That kind of acting takes a toll when there's so few opportunities for breaks. But this San, all giggles and easy touches and biting humor...this is his San. Something swells in Wooyoung’s chest.

“Hey,” he can’t help but say, “I really…”

San turns to him, eyebrow raised, and the words die in Wooyoung’s throat. They’ve never really put a name to what this is, even if it’s there. Even if it’s important. Neither of them has ever particularly excelled in expressing themselves without hiding truths behind fake smiles or knee-jerk snark, respectively, but they can understand each other without a single world spoken aloud. Having someone who knows him that deeply and would still run to the ends of the Earth with him is something Wooyoung never thought he would find. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t take it for granted.

San reads right into the loss of words, as he always does. His expression softens into a tender thing. “Yeah, me too.”

He brings his hand down this time to fully intertwine it with Wooyoung’s own, and they look back to the stars with a hundred affirmations passed between them. For once, Wooyoung doesn’t try to hide his smile.

Ω

Hongjoong is beginning to hate the sun.

He’s been trying to keep a fast pace all morning, and now that the sun has reached its zenith, it’s starting to beat down on him more noticeably. Sweat drips in uncomfortable lines down his back, his dry mouth wars with what he knows is a limited supply of water, and there’s no one along to pass the time with idle chatter. Because Hongjoong is back on the road, and this time he’s alone.

Alone. He’s felt that in every sense of the word, in every shade of gray there is. He’s not blind to how kind the others have been to him even when he hasn’t stepped up to the plate, but he knows they can’t fully understand. How can he explain what it feels like to have hope passed back and forth across the table while he’s forced to watch, snatched out of his hands just as soon as it’s laid there? How can he explain the way his faith in something greater than himself had become so intertwined with faith in himself, that where one fell apart the other so quickly followed? Hongjoong has never felt so strongly that being Chosen was a dying world’s last cosmic joke.

He left a note for Yunho and Mingi so they’ll know he’s still alive. A few scrawled lines instead of a proper goodbye were necessary in this case, because he’d left before dawn in the last few minutes before the end of his shift. Hongjoong knows they would have tried to stop him. He couldn’t let that happen.

Things have...changed. For so long his path was clouded, but now he knows what he needs to do. No matter the intentions behind him being singled out as this world’s supposed savior, he’ll use that title to break the wheel of those who’d seek to use him as their pawn. He  _ will  _ save the people he loves. This choice, this ending, all of it: Hongjoong is doing this for them.

Has the sun grown even hotter? Sweat stings his eyes, and his legs keep protesting forward progress even despite the downhill descent. He can’t decide which part of him feels more like it’s on the verge of bursting into flames. Still, Hongjoong soldiers on. If he wants to make it back in time, he can’t stop to rest.

Time, as Hongjoong is very much aware, is the one thing they’ll never have enough of.

Ω

San isn’t being lazy, per se. He’s just maybe...taking liberties with Wooyoung’s eagerness to set their things back up.

The other man had been so excited to be back at their main camp that he’d immediately started unpacking, and as long as San keeps contributing to the conversation, there doesn’t seem to be any complaints about him taking a not-quite nap in the shade of the cave mouth.

“I’m just saying,” Wooyoung points out, “it wasn’t my imagination. The demons we fought on the way back were much stronger than on the way there.”

“So, what, you think they’re feeding off all the negative energy of the world going dark?”

“Or dead humans, yeah.”

San pulls a face. That would be just their luck, wouldn’t it? They take two steps toward ending this mess only for super-demons to start powering up all over the place. 

“At least we picked up our artifact before things got worse,” he says. “Now we just need the others to kick it into gear so we can gloat.”

“Hongjoong!”

San’s eyebrows knit together. “I mean, I mostly meant Mingi after he challenged us and all, but I guess ━ ?”

“No, I mean look!” Wooyoung stops him, pointing over his shoulder. “Hongjoong!”

San’s head whips back to where Wooyoung is pointing in disbelief, and sure enough, he sees their leader rapidly approaching the line of protective runes. Excitement hits San first. Had he really summoned the others here by complaining? Because hell yes, he’s ready for the next stage of whatever the rest of their plan is, and he’s been dreaming of the look on Mingi’s face when he sees them already here. Then he hears Wooyoung get up beside him, sees the exhaustion on Hongjoong’s face, sees that he’s definitely  _ alone _ , and he embraces the worry that washes over him before dread can hollow out his insides.

Wooyoung makes it to Hongjoong’s side first. He reaches out to support Hongjoong’s weight before the other can collapse. As soon as they make it to the shade to sit back down, San is pressing a bottle of water into their leader’s hand and dabbing some of the sweat off his face. He still doesn’t know what to think. Hongjoong doesn’t necessarily look like something has gone horribly wrong, but he looks like he ran a marathon to get here. That’s definitely not stopping the list of worst-case scenarios running through San’s mind on frantic repeat. That’s definitely not stopping Wooyoung from not being able to wait for Hongjoong to catch his breath before asking point-blank, “What are you doing here?”

It’s a testament to how tired Hongjoong must be that he doesn’t call Wooyoung out for demanding answers when he’s still burning up. He gives them both a raspy “Thanks” and takes another long sip of water without acknowledging the question.

Before Wooyoung’s obvious irritation can boil over, San asks instead, “Are the others okay?” He immediately gets a nod in return, which at least turns worst-case scenarios to unpleasant ones.

“They’re fine,” Hongjoong reassures them after one more swig. “Working on getting the artifact. I’d still be with them, but I had another vision. Teliko showed me that you’d be needing my help, so I got here as fast as I could.”

San knows an opening when he sees one. “So much for Teliko having faith in the two of us, even when we already finished before all of you. What does she think we need, a babysitter?”

All it gets him is a tired attempt at a smile, and San immediately dials himself down, feeling rebuffed. It was an attempt, okay? Now that he knows everyone is alive and kicking, he figured they could use a laugh. Sue him.

“We were about to do some scouting after I finished setting up,” Wooyoung says like the moment hadn’t happened at all. San appreciates it enough not to bite back at the pointed “I” instead of “we” in that sentence. “Figured it was good to double-check that no one else moved in nearby while we were gone. But if you want to rest inside, we can wait to leave.”

In true Hongjoong fashion, he immediately starts to protest. “I don’t want to slow you two down,” he gets out before San is crossing his arms and giving him a firm look.

“Sleep,” he insists. “You could use it.” He wishes Yunho was here to talk some sense into him. Most days it seems like he’s the only one who can get through.

But then, unexpectedly not in true Hongjoong fashion, he concedes, “Alright.”

For a moment, San just stares. Wooyoung shoots him a look that’s essentially the long line of question marks San is feeling. “Alright?” he checks to make sure he’s heard correctly.

“Alright.”

Since when does Hongjoong admit he can’t do something? Since when does he agree to  _ sleep _ ? What kind of body-snatchers moment is this right now?

“I’ll get a blanket laid out inside,” Wooyoung says, sending another lost look over Hongjoong’s head. “San, make sure he gets inside without falling apart.”

“I’m not a child,” Hongjoong grumbles, sounding more like himself. That brief moment of normalcy is what San latches onto, trying to shake off the weirdness from earlier as he helps pull Hongjoong to his feet and ensure he makes it to Wooyoung’s makeshift bed in one piece. Just how far, San wonders, is he supposed to overlook how strangely this whole thing sits with him? Because while he feels a little crazy reading into Hongjoong’s every action, they’re not exactly in a position to be taking chances or ignoring their instincts.

They give Hongjoong two minutes to fall asleep. Two minutes of silent hand-to-hand sparring in the camp’s open clearing as they try to channel some of the day’s unsettling energy into their punches and out of their systems. Then San is dropping his guard and getting to the real core of what they’ve been dancing around.

“Woo,” he says point-blank. “What the hell was that? And I don’t mean your bad form.”

Wooyoung almost rises to the bait before he stops himself, eyes drifting to the cave entrance like he can somehow read Hongjoong from here. “I have no clue,” he says. “But, I mean...he could barely walk or talk when he got here. It’s not like he’s completely himself right now.”

For the second time that day, San feels like he has a tinfoil hat glued to his head. “You’re telling me that Hongjoong shows up out of the blue alone without an artifact, barely makes eye contact with either of us, agrees to sleep like a normal human, and you’re not the least bit suspicious? I thought that was your job.”

Unsurprisingly, Wooyoung takes the opportunity to try and get another punch in, one that San lifts his arms up to block in the nick of time. The disappointed pout on Wooyoung’s face is mildly endearing (San’s own weakness) and mildly concerning (it  _ had  _ been aiming directly for his face? No thank you?).

“I’m just doing what you told me to do,” Wooyoung counters. “Giving Hongjoong more credit.”

Of course. A true Wooyoung classic: San’s own words coming back right on time to bite him in the ass. He rolls his eyes and gives him a huffed, “Fine. I’m still slipping holy water into his drink later.” It almost sounds like he’s joking. He’s not.

“That’s a waste of holy water, but whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Isn’t that you?” San asks, greasy, and Wooyoung immediately makes a show of being disgusted  ━ which makes him distracted. It’s a golden opportunity that San isn’t about to let go to waste. One more feigned gag from Wooyoung and San is pinning him to the ground, arms twisted behind his back and a startled sound pulled from his lips.

“Oh, come  _ on _ , you cheated!” he whines, only for San to twist his arms a little tighter.

“Sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear anything over the sound of you losing so spectacularly.” This is so stupid. This is the most fun he’s had all day.

A deep sigh comes from somewhere deep within Wooyoung’s chest. “Sometimes, I really can’t stand you.”

“Yeah, yeah, love you, too,” San tells him. A second later, the words actually process, and his heart does its best impression of tripping headfirst down a flight of stairs.

“...San?”

“Well, would you look at that,” San announces too loudly, doing a piss-poor job of changing the subject. “I’d better go check on Hongjoong. And get the holy water ready. Bye!”

He releases his death grip and speed-walks back toward the cave with his back ramrod straight. Exactly once, he glances behind him to see Wooyoung watching him leave with a crooked smile on his face, which...okay. It almost makes the embarrassment worth it. San quickly books it to the safety of the cave’s interior with the tips of his ears burning a concerning shade of red.

(He can neither confirm nor deny that he sits against the wall opposite to Hongjoong and silently screams into his hands.)

Ω

Standing back-to-back in the middle of the cave, surrounded on all sides by demons and his breaths heavy from exertion, Mingi has never been more grateful to have Yunho along with him. That’s not to say that he normally takes him for granted, but there’s something about the threat of imminent danger that makes him especially thankful to have someone he trusts covering his blind spots.

The demons had admittedly been a surprise. In retrospect, coming across an empty cave without having done any previous scouting should have seemed too good to be true, but the thought of sleeping that night in actual shelter had been tempting enough to chance it. They still intend to indulge in that luxury. Half of the first wave of Possessed lie motionless on the ground with matching expressions of outrage on their faces. The rest of the horde have taken up a circular formation to trap them inside, but Mingi knows that won’t last long.

When the first demon moves, he and Yunho meet them head-on with blades swinging. Yunho’s preference has always been that longsword of his, a solidly built piece of metalwork that’s as elegant as it is deadly. As for Mingi? He took immediately to the twin daggers that he now wields. Despite the jests he’s gotten from some others (Wooyoung) about the contrast between his own build and that of his weapons of choice, Mingi knows that practice has made him just as deadly of an opponent. Familiarity lends the two of them what nearly counts as a sixth sense, and they move in perfect sync as they work to finish off the last of the demons.

Only when Mingi is sure of their victory does he allow his thoughts to wander. He can’t help but think that it would have been nice to have another person watching both of their backs. Hongjoong’s letter still sits folded up in one of their packs, reread five times over to make sure they’d understood correctly. On one hand, Mingi can understand the urgency that accompanied the words: the vision, the others needing help with retrieving their own artifact. He just wishes Hongjoong would have  _ talked _ to them first. How hard would it have been to wake them up and give them some warning instead of ghosting them with only handwritten words in his stead? Still, what’s done is done. They still have a mission to complete with or without the other man’s company.

The last demon falls with Mingi’s dagger sprouting from its chest. He fights back a shudder as he pulls the weapon back out and wipes the blood across a relatively clean spot of fabric on the Possessed’s raggedy clothes. By now, he’s grown mostly numb to the shock factor of killing what’s still technically a human underneath all of the demon possession. Short of a demon giving up on a host entirely, there was no “curing” that kind of parasitic takeover. Be it by blade or by exorcism, these people were sentenced to their fates the moment they received the kiss of death.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Yunho asks out of the blue.

It’s only because of where Mingi’s thoughts had been a minute before that he follows what  ━  who  ━ Yunho is referring to. Maybe “okay” isn’t the best word to use here, because Mingi has made it very clear that he’s worried about their leader, but that’s not what Yunho needs to hear.

“He’s been training to kill these things longer than you have. I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he says. When Yunho’s frown doesn’t leave, he adds, “Must have gotten so used to third-wheeling that he started to miss it, though I can’t imagine why.”

“Don’t be mean,” Yunho gently chides him. “If they don’t want to talk about it, then we won’t talk about it.”

Mingi’s not entirely inclined to agree with him, considering anyone with two working eyes can tell the gist of what’s going on between San and Wooyoung, but if he imagines himself in their shoes...he supposes he might be uncomfortable with his friends talking behind his back about something like that. Better to be on the safe side than to be an asshole about it.

The silence must stretch on long enough for Yunho to realize he’s killing the mood Mingi was aiming for, because his face falls in apology before he pulls himself out of his own head. “We must not have been trying hard enough,” he says with the hesitant beginnings of a smile. There he is.

“You wouldn’t even know where to start!” Mingi counters.

The last word has hardly left his lips before he’s nearly stumbling over one of the dead bodies. Yunho pushes him unceremoniously against the cave wall with an overly dramatic hand placed near Mingi’s head, something he must have picked up from a drama ages ago, and grins that shit-eating grin that Mingi has seen far too many times. And like, objectively...Mingi gets it. He understands why people have been making eyes at his best friend since way before this whole demon mess started, back before Yunho had met Hongjoong and pulled Mingi along with him into the rollercoaster of the past few years. He’s also miles away from taking this seriously. Lightyears, even.

With half-contained amusement, he deadpans, “If you were going to pull the height difference card, you should’ve tried it on Hongjoong.”

Yunho’s surprised laughter is far too loud and far too close to Mingi’s personal space, but it’s still a victory. He’s smiling again, isn’t he? Mingi still takes the opportunity to shove the other away from him and start hauling the first of the bodies out of the cave, still shaking his head at Yunho’s echoing laughter.

Maybe it’s time for a revision to his earlier statement. Imminent danger and blind spots aside, it really boils down to a simple fact: Mingi is grateful to have his favorite person with him at the end of the world.

Ω

San is feeling restless, and not just in the literal sense.

His lack of real shut-eye tonight is just one of the symptoms of the impatient energy that’s started to bubble beneath his skin. It’s not abnormal for him to feel antsy, but they’re normally so focused on supply gathering and demon killing that he at least has somewhere to direct that energy. All of this waiting around is killing him. He keeps drifting in and out of sleep without feeling like he’s rested at all, and not just because he was hoping to at least have a few moments with Wooyoung before they checked out for the night.

Opportunities for time alone had dwindled down to the few hours where Hongjoong was on watch. They hadn’t had time for the rest of the afternoon to really talk. San would at least like to have one honest conversation so he can silence the irrational voice in his head telling him that his slip-up from earlier had mattered much more than it actually did. Stir-crazy and mildly anxious weren’t a good combination.

One more annoyed shift to his other side that yields exactly zero progress toward sleep and San has had it. He gets to his feet and runs one hand through the messy excuse he’s sure he currently has for hair before shuffling back out to the main body of the cave. To his surprise, he finds it empty. If Wooyoung and Hongjoong are talking, he won’t interrupt them, but it seems too quiet for that. San feel unsettled by the whole thing.

With one more crack of his stiff neck, he heads toward the entrance to find out what the others are up to. “Hey, why are you two so…” he starts before trailing off. It’s no wonder they’re quiet, because neither of them are actually here. Is it too dramatic of him to start panicking? Because at this point, he thinks he’s fairly justified.

The campfire outside is long dead. San lights one of the rusty lanterns that had come along with the old mining equipment and grabs his sword before stepping foot into the darkness. What would be worse, he wonders? Finding nothing or finding bodies?  _ Hell _ , he’d better not find bodies. He knows this world is more dangerous than he lets himself think about most of the time, but he can’t accept losing someone like this. Not without any sort of warning, not without giving San a chance to put a stop to it.

He’s spiraling. San has to halt his search entirely for a moment and take a deep breath to settle the riptide of thoughts from his head. Either he just hasn’t found them yet, or they’re in danger. And if the latter case is true, it’s in his hands to pull them from whatever danger that is. He was only half-asleep, damn it, how could they have been attacked without him knowing? If he had just been pulled back to consciousness a minute or two sooner, maybe, he wouldn’t be wandering in circles around the cave not knowing what he expects to stumble across.

San is nearly done with a second full loop before the dim light of his lantern reveals a collection of marks in the dirt too deep to be random. Heart in his throat, he crouches down to take a closer look. There was a struggle here, definitely, but tracking has never been his expertise. The language of each individual mark is lost on him. San is almost tempted to throw the lantern at his only clue just to spite it for being too cryptic.

Then his eyes travel further from the initial mark, and that frustration turns into a steady sort of determination. They’re hard to see unless one was looking for them, but those are definitely the faint impression of footprints, right beside an uninterrupted line where someone was dragged a short distance away.

The trail isn’t a solid one, it doesn’t go far, and it’s still riddled with a host of assumption. But now San has a direction where the others were taken. The action that he’d been itching for is finally here, if not on the terms he’d wanted. San doesn’t hesitate a moment longer. He rushes in the direction of the footprints as fast as his legs will carry him.

Hongjoong and Wooyoung are counting on him. He sends a prayer to whatever might still be out there listening that he isn’t too late to save them.

Ω

Awareness returns to Wooyoung much too slowly for his liking. His eyelids are heavy as they ease back open, and his limbs still feel like they’re shaking off the tingling remnants of numbness. Where is he? There’s a fuzzy impression of fabric pressed over his face and a sickly sweetness that comes to mind, but that’s the full extent of Wooyoung’s memories. The large cavern he appears to be in now is a mystery to him.

As the tingling continues to fade, Wooyoung can take better stock of his body: his arms and legs are bound with tight knots, restricting his movement, and there’s a wide strip of tape stretched over his mouth. The stone is cold against his cheek where it’s pressed into the ground.

He’s been kidnapped, maybe? It’s hard to believe that a demon would put this much time into restraints without just ending him, so maybe it’s another human. Despite Wooyoung’s efforts to bury his past, there are plenty of people who’d like to see a Crusader dead. Mistrust of training with spirits’ powers and rigid power structures tended to do that to people.

The cavern isn’t as dark as it should be. It takes Wooyoung longer than it should for his vision to fully come back into focus. When it does, he can make out a wide shaft of moonlight pouring in from some opening in the ceiling, along with the single lantern just past his feet. Then Wooyoung wishes he hadn’t looked, because he can see the sigils.

Unfamiliar patterns wrap in a circular fashion around the center of the cavern, a few feet out from Wooyoung’s body. He may not know their intent, but he can see clearly that they’re drawn in blood. These sigils aren’t just for show. A chill goes down his spine that’s colder than the stone. He needs to get out of here as quickly as he can, before whoever drew these comes back to finish whatever they started.

Though his hands are tied behind his back, Wooyoung still digs his fingers into the uneven ground until he finds purchase. He’s able to maneuver himself enough to flip onto his back, which gives him a clearer view of the cavern  ━ and the figure standing next to him in the circle of sigils.

Immediately, Wooyoung flinches back. He has no way of defending himself or making an escape, but his body instinctively tries to move itself away from the threat. That sudden fight or flight response, however, dissipates when he recognizes the face of the man half-turned away from him. It’s Hongjoong. At least one of them has freed themselves, at least, and fortunately that’s all they need. If he can undo the binds around Wooyoung’s ankles for starters, then…

No, something’s wrong. Wooyoung’s heart sinks before his brain fully registers what he’s seeing, one step ahead of realizing something isn’t right here. The bandage Hongjoong is wrapping around his palm, the bloody knife hung at his waist...Wooyoung doesn’t understand.

Hongjoong is still pulling the bandage taut with his other hand when he catches Wooyoung’s eye. For a moment, he freezes. Then he’s coming to stand at Wooyoung’s side, just far enough away that Wooyoung knows there’s no rescue in progress. This is all wrong. Up is down and black is white and Hongjoong is watching him struggle without lifting a finger.

_ What’s happening? _ Wooyoung wants to ask, but behind the tape it comes out as nothing more than a distressed groan.

Something pained flashes in Hongjoong’s expression. “Wooyoung, I…” he starts, but quickly trails off. When he starts to talk again, his eyes are fixed on the ground and nowhere near Wooyoung’s own.

“When I was traveling with the others,” Hongjoong says quietly, “we came across an illusion demon. I killed it myself, but before that happened, it put me in contact with one of the alpha demons. Thymos had been trying to reach out to a Chosen for some time. He...made me an offer.”

Wooyoung grits his teeth against the sting of the other man’s betrayal, resists the frustrated tears that threaten the corners of his eyes. How does Hongjoong, of all people, think this will end well?

“Thymos made his terms very clear,” Hongjoong continues. “Demons will stop possessing more humans and double the length of future cycles, at the price of the Possessed remaining as hosts. I made a call. I accepted the terms.”

Even if Wooyoung was able to speak, he doesn’t know what he would say. What happened to their master plan, to breaking the wheel? What happened to saving everyone? And overlooking all of that, it still doesn’t explain why Wooyoung is tied up in a circle of bloody sigils with no idea what’s going on.

“There was one final thing he asked for.” Hongjoong’s face contorts in an expression that somehow pulls Wooyoung’s heart even lower. “Thymos is still imprisoned from a previous cycle. Not completely, but enough to stop him from fully manifesting. His freedom requires a sacrifice.”

Any last vestiges of hope Wooyoung was clinging to fall away in an instant. He doesn’t need Hongjoong to spell it out for him. His role in all of this is painfully clear.

“I’m so sorry, Wooyoung. I wanted it to be me. I  _ asked _ for it to be me, but Thymos insisted on you. He wanted it to be the Crusader who banished his apprentice this cycle. When I told him you never finished your training, he didn’t care.” Hongjoong’s voice shakes. “You understand, don’t you? That this is for everyone’s good? That this is the only way to stop all the suffering?”

No, Wooyoung  _ doesn’t _ understand. This can’t possibly be their only option, and Hongjoong had no right to use his life as a bargaining chip. When he shakes his head, he’s sure he looks as terrified as he’s starting to feel, because Hongjoong’s composure slips ever further down its fault line. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

It’s horribly earnest, but that won’t do Wooyoung much good. Not if that earnestness still means he’s dying tonight. 

“What Thymos showed me, if you’d seen...they’re toying with us. The demons could possess or crush the last city and everyone scattered outside of it in a matter of days. Them wanting to draw it out and make it painful is the only thing keeping us alive.”

He doesn’t say it matter-of-factly, or even with the defeated edge Wooyoung expected. No, Hongjoong sounds like he’s on the verge of hysteria. He sounds desperate enough to try just about anything.

“At least I know the truth, right? Better than being strung along and played like a fool while I’m made to believe that we actually had a chance. We don’t. There’s a reason every cycle has ended the same. So if this is what I have to do to protect all of you in this world and the next one ━ ”

“Wooyoung! Hongjoong!”

A shout comes from Wooyoung’s left, and a wild sort of hope beats its wings in Wooyoung’s chest even as Hongjoong swears under his breath. Because if he cranes his neck to look toward the cavern’s entrance, he can see San racing toward them, lantern in one hand and relief on his face. He’d found them. Wooyoung had never been overly keen on public displays of affection, but if San can get him a safe distance away from that knife at Hongjoong’s waist? That will absolutely change.

A few paces from the sigils, San slows to a halt. His relief quickly morphs into confusion as he takes in the sight in front of him. The hand that sets his lantern down hovers uncertainly above his sword. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” Hongjoong tells him, voice tight. “Teliko was right about one thing, at least. Being Chosen means making the choices no one else is willing to make.” Then he pulls out the blade meant to end Wooyoung’s life.

It clicks. Wooyoung can see the moment San puts it together. His eyes go frightfully wide before he’s racing the rest of the way toward them, a “Wait!” echoing through the cavern.

_ Please _ , Wooyoung silently begs him.  _ Get here in time. Stop him. _

San is the fastest runner Wooyoung has ever known. He should have more than enough time to put an end to this before it’s too late. Which is why it hurts so acutely when he hits the circle of sigils and stops like he’s crashed headfirst into a wall.

The air ripples at the point of impact, revealing the protective field there for only a moment, and an unbidden wail sounds behind the tape over Wooyoung’s mouth. There’s no rescue coming for him. There’s no more miracles.

“Hongjoong, stop!” San is shouting. He pounds on the barrier with a ferocity Wooyoung has rarely seen, but to no avail. “Don’t do this!”

Suddenly, there’s hands at Wooyoung’s shoulders, maneuvering him up so he’s kneeling on the ground. Wooyoung tries to kick out, then wriggle his way toward the sigils when that doesn’t work, but a weight stops him. Hongjoong sits on top of his legs and pulls him backward, pressing Wooyoung tightly enough against his chest that he can’t move. This is really happening. So much terror crashes over Wooyoung all at once that it’s difficult to even process it as an emotion.

San has his sword out now, still banging uselessly against the barrier. Wooyoung hates that he can see him, can see the desperation worn plainly on his face. Does Hongjoong think this is a mercy, letting them still look at each other at the end? Does he still care?  _ If this is what I have to do to protect all of you _ , he hears echoed in his memory, and a fresh wave of hurt blooms in Wooyoung’s chest like a gunshot.

“ _ Please! _ ” San screams now. “You can’t kill him! You can’t take him away from me! Hongjoong, please ━ !”

Wooyoung has never wanted to hear San beg. There’s no anger there, not anymore. Any of that fire has been replaced by a single repeated plea.

It still doesn’t make a difference. Wooyoung can feel the death sentence of cold metal pressing against his throat. San’s voice fades to nothing more than a background hum, Wooyoung’s whole body pulling focus to that single point of contact. He’d imagined before how everything would end for him. One way or another, he knew none of them were making it out of their quest alive. This...this is not any of his imagined endings.

“It will all be over soon.” Hongjoong’s voice is low in his ear. Gentle, even. “You’ll wake up safely in the New World, and you’ll be a hero in this one. I promise.”

And some part of Wooyoung, the part that trusts Hongjoong implicitly, still wants to believe that he knows what he’s doing. As naive as it may be, that scared lost boy inside him who’d found solace and family under this man’s wing will always be a part of him. Wooyoung tries to hold onto Hongjoong's reassurances despite the absolute terror that’s seized his body. He can feel his time run out.

His eyes turn to San: San who’s fighting tooth and nail for him to the bitter end, San who’d completed him when he didn’t know what was missing, San who now stands a few painful feet away looking like a wreck and unable to stop this new path his fate has taken. Wooyoung looks at nothing but San’s eyes as Hongjoong cuts his throat.

He gasps. A sharp pain slices through skin, warmth spills down his front, and then the sensations start to fade away with the rest of him.

Wooyoung sees flashes of a monstrous figure breaking through the ground, of San thrown back by an explosion, of Hongjoong standing over him with trembling hands stained crimson. He has one last fleeting thought that he hopes Hongjoong is right.

And then Wooyoung sees nothing at all.

Ω

San comes to with a gasp.

He gets about three seconds of good air before his lungs spasm, coughing and hacking at the layer of ash and debris that’s covered his body. He feels like he’s been hit by a truck. For a minute, all he can focus on is the extent of his injuries: scrapes and cuts, mostly, but also a few deeper gashes on his legs. Probably a minor concussion, too, he notes with a groan, and then he  _ remembers _ .

San scrambles to his feet. Immediately, he has to resist crying out at the pain that seems to come from everywhere at once, though muffled sounds still escape his lips. It doesn’t matter. Right now, San’s pain is inconsequential. He limps toward the cavern’s ruined entrance with one goal and one goal only.

God, it  _ hurts _ . Every part of him screams in protest as he tries to move what he can of the debris. Small clumps of earth, larger stones that tear at the abrasions on his hands, until there’s nothing left that he can physically move. He hasn’t even made a dent.

But who is San kidding? The entire cavern collapsed in on itself when he was thrown back outside during the summoning, leaving no way back to its center. Wooyoung is gone. Whatever remains of him is lost. All San has of him now is the memory of those eyes, so horribly close, and how the light in them had so quickly faded.

_ God. _

San gives himself a moment. Or, rather, his body rips a moment from him. He collapses back to the ground with his head clutched painfully tight in his hands, fighting against a wave of emotion that threatens to overwhelm him. If he allows himself to process this now, he’ll break. And for all the anguish that he’s shoving back down inside his chest, San knows he doesn’t have such a luxury. The explosion will have drawn someone’s attention. He needs to be far from here before they come looking.

Having a goal is a start. Even if he has no clear destination besides “not here,” it gives San something to focus on. He can almost ignore the emptiness clawing at his insides when the full effect of his injuries kicks in, shock giving way to nearly crippling pain. Human bodies weren’t meant to be cast away so violently.

San limps in the direction of their camp, then crawls when that becomes too much, cursing the trail of blood that he’s started to leave behind him. The distance had seemed like such a short one when he was running in the opposite direction, but this feels like an eons-long struggle. Just a little further, past the sigils, and he’ll be ━

A boot comes down hard on San’s back, halting his progress. The choked protest in his throat dissolves into a pained groan that he can’t hold back.

_ No. _

San struggles against the weight, but inhuman strength flips him over and pins the boot against his throat instead, pressing dangerously hard. The woman standing over him is a few shades away from a walking corpse. Patches of skin hang looser than others on her bones, and rotten patches crop up in between, marking her as a Possessed who’s running short on life force. She’s at her weakest point since being mortal. If San wasn’t a broken pile of wounds and pain and misery…

“Poor thing,” she mocks, voice like stones grinding together. “You’re making quite the mess bleeding out everywhere.”

San has faced much worse taunts. He’s  _ given _ much worse to much more powerful demons. He’s no longer in the mood to be his usual character. “Fuck you,” he spits out lifelessly. He may be too weak to fight her off, but he’s not going to play her games. There’s no joy in it anymore.

A dangerous glint flashes in her eyes. Her head tilts one way too far to be human, and then she lunges. San feels the start of a blunt force against his head before his pain blessedly fades and he returns to a dreamless oblivion.

Ω

Halfway down the ladder, Yunho starts to reconsider if this is a good idea.

He knows it’s the only way forward. That much had been clear after they’d scoped out the entire area around the temple entrance. It’s just that between the growing darkness and Mingi’s scared mumbling that he tries to pass off as “planning”, Yunho is starting to second-guess how prepared they are to see this through. Then again, for all Hongjoong’s insistence on preparing, when have they really ever been able to fully prepare for the next obstacle? Demons and spirits alike never seem to like playing by the rules.

By the time he reaches the final rung, Yunho can hardly see a thing. His foot unexpectedly hits solid ground, and he warns Mingi just in time for the other to not be surprised behind him.

Where are they? If this had been a place of worship, or at least a monument to a spirit, it has to have some sort of lighting. Kind of hard to be reverent when you can’t see two inches in front of your face. Yunho paces forward with both palms outstretched until he finds a wall, patting against the surface and searching for...something. A door, hopefully. He nearly jumps out of his own skin when a hand latches onto his elbow.

“Sorry, it’s just me,” Mingi’s sheepish voice says, just fast enough that Yunho hasn't yet drawn his sword.

“Some warning next time?” he asks.

“If I’m quiet enough about it, we can both pretend I ran into you instead of freaking out and wanting to hold your hand.”

Yunho snorts, but he doesn’t shake off Mingi’s grip. He continues to pat around solid rock until he finally hits against a different material. One that has a handle.

“Found it!” he says, immediately perking up. “Ready?”

Mingi hesitates. “What are our chances of slow and painful death on the other side, do you think?”

“Let’s find out.”

Yunho pulls open the door without another moment’s pause, and his eyes immediately go wide. Mingi’s hand falls from his arm and goes slack. While the landing at the bottom of the ladder had been dark and bare, the temple’s interior is an entirely different story. Bioluminescent flora paints the ceiling and edges of upturned stone, giving off a dim blue glow that seems almost supernatural in nature. Most of the temple’s stone looks to be halfway swallowed up by the earth, but if anything, that makes it look more stunning. If the others could see this…

“Over there,” Mingi says in a harsh whisper, pulling Yunho’s focus down the hallway up ahead.

At first, Yunho doesn’t see what he’s talking about. Then his eyes zero in on the outline of a hunched figure as Mingi quietly pulls his daggers from their sheaths. It must be some kind of guardian, he assumes as they creep closer, but there’s something off about it. Something about the way the guardian’s head swivels toward a dropped stone, but its eyes almost seem to pass right over Yunho and Mingi as it turns back to its wandering. Almost like…

“Wait,” Yunho hisses in Mingi’s ear as the other starts to move forward. “I don’t think it can see us.”

“Not yet. Let’s kill it before━"

“No, I think it’s  _ blind _ . As long as we don’t make any noise…”

Mingi squints at the guardian for a long moment. “You’d better be right about that.”

“When have I ever been wrong?” At Mingi’s skeptical look, Yunho winces. “Okay, don’t answer that. But I feel good about this.”

There’s no more to the argument. Mingi tilts his head in acceptance of Yunho’s hunch and leads the way forward. Yunho hadn’t expected a big disagreement, considering they trust each other’s instincts just as much as their own, but it still makes him feel a hair more confident when he’s not immediately shut down.

That confidence increases tenfold as they skirt around the guardian in the hall. The creature’s only response to their hushed footsteps and held breaths is a slight twitch of its left eye, and even that seems like a regular affliction more so than suspicion. Just as Yunho had predicted: blind.

Not quite as Yunho had predicted: the larger group of guardians in the next room. He has to breathe again now, but he does so as quietly as he can, trying to slow his heart against the sudden shot of adrenaline so many hostiles ignites. One nod shared between him and Mingi and they’re on the move.

In theory, it’s no different from the first guardian. Shut up, move on, don’t make mistakes. In practice, making no sound proves to be a challenge. There are a few close calls as they navigate their way deeper into the heart of the temple. Neither Yunho nor Mingi are small in stature, which means a lot more potential collisions to avoid. Mingi in particular has historically not always been a master of his own limbs. It’s not that Yunho doesn’t trust him to be careful, but he keeps one anxious eye on the other man all the same.

In the end, however, Yunho is the one to falter. One misstep over a stray stone sends it skidding a few meters forward, which brings a few guardians loping their way with toothy scowls on their faces. Before Yunho’s stomach finishes sinking, Mingi tosses another stone down an adjacent hallway. The group of guardians race after the noise, and Yunho thinks the two of them can’t move on fast enough. Especially when they hear growing snarls of anger behind them as their little distraction is revealed for the trick it is.

Thankfully, the temple isn’t designed to be a maze. The occasional extra turn aside, all hallways eventually lead to the focal point: an interior room with marbled glass set into the walls in dazzling sheets. It’s a beautiful display of craftsmanship. Yunho spares it a single glance before he sees the silver cage suspended high above the ground ━ one with a sextant locked inside. So close, and yet…

“Maybe if you stand on my shoulders?” Mingi proposes in a whisper. There’s no real conviction in the words. They’re tall, but not that tall.

“What do you think of when you think old-fashioned temples?” Yunho asks him.

“A whole lot of effort and a general feeling of superiority. Rituals?”

“That’s where I was going.” Yunho starts to pace as he continues, taking in every inch of the room that he can. “Everything is set up for a reason, and the sextant isn’t just important to us. There would have been some way to get it down.”

“Something complicated, you mean.”

“Probably. There should be instructions somewhere, I hope. A diagram, a book…” Yunho stops, his hand mid-trail across the wall. Running his hands over the glass had been more habit than anything, but what if it’s not about the material itself? What if he takes a closer look at what’s on it?

“I think we found our diagram.”

Mingi peers over his shoulder at the glass, and he lets out a huff of laughter. “Right in front of our noses.”

The faint light cast by the plants above them makes it hard to see, but the marbling in the glass isn’t just for artistic value. The images created there are a story, yes, but they’re also a comprehensive image: a floor-to-ceiling instruction manual for getting to the treasure they’d come here to secure.

“Looks like a wheel slides out━” Yunho starts, but they both freeze at the sudden scuffling of footsteps from just beyond the room’s entrance. A guardian comes into view for a few seconds before disappearing to the other side. Not all of them had chased after Mingi’s distraction, which means they still need to be quiet. Yunho points at the mural and the room’s northern pillar in lieu of instructions, to which Mingi sends him a silent thumbs-up. What’s a little silence? They’ve had to do much more under much worse circumstances.

With some guidance from the mural, Mingi finds the mechanism on the shadowed side of the pillar, exposing a horizontal wheel that slowly swings out of the stone. Its purpose is clear enough, even without instructions. Yunho joins him immediately. They each grab onto a spoke and crank it counterclockwise, fighting resistance for a moment before the wheel starts to spin. The caged sextant starts to descend from the ceiling, which under other circumstances would make this a cakewalk to victory. But in their particular situation, the loud grinding that sounds from the descending mechanism makes it more of an inevitable problem.

Yunho would wince if his body wasn’t so singularly focused on getting this wheel to keep cranking. Hopefully the guardians are still far enough away for the sound to not reach their ears, with the exception of a few stragglers. The relative calm lasts long enough for him to actually believe it. Until he hears horrible gargled screeching echo down the hall, gradually getting louder by the second. They can’t get  _ that _ lucky.

“Can you━?” Yunho starts, but Mingi is already waving him away before gripping onto a second spoke.

“I can handle it,” he confirms. He’s no longer whispering. Staying silent isn’t much use anymore.

Yunho takes a second to make sure the cage is still coming down before he strides back to the entrance. Having a single doorway in this case is somewhat of a double-edged sword. Great, because the guardians will have to funnel in to get to them. Not so great, because their one route of escape could be cut off entirely with little to no effort on their enemies’ side.

The groaning of the wheel still sounds behind him. It’s not loud enough to mask the cacophony of growls and screeches that seem to be reaching a growing crescendo. Yunho gets only a few seconds warning after drawing his sword for the first guardian to launch itself through the doorway.

With one succinct swing, the creature is on its knees. After the next, it shrivels in upon itself with an awful howl before its gray skin hardens to match the floor below its body. Flesh borne from the stone returns to its original form. If he had more time, Yunho would afford himself a few moments to wonder at that brand of magic, but such breathing room is still out of his reach.

A swarm of guardians cluster by the entrance like the tide coming in, emboldened by the demise of one of their brethren. Even if they can’t fit through all at once, they certainly try. The only thing stopping Yunho from backing away from the onslaught of teeth and claws is knowing that the battle is lost the moment he lets them inside. This is where he has to hold the line.

The guardians are ferocious fighters, despite their slight frames and lack of weapons. Maybe it’s all that concentrated anger, or maybe they were each individually molded from the stone to be nothing less than compact machines of destruction. Whatever the case, Yunho has his work cut out for him as he slashes and parries through their numbers. He’s not sure which takes more out of him: the guardians or the demons he's had so much experience with.

“Tell me you’re close!” he shouts over the sounds of fighting, hoping that Mingi can still hear him.

“Just one more rotation! Give me a━ there!” Yunho is relieved for all of a moment before Mingi continues, “The wheel won’t stay in place! You have to grab the artifact!”

It’s not ideal, to put it lightly. Yunho is the only thing stopping them from being overrun. If he leaves his post...they need to be fast. Lighting fast.

Yunho’s next jab pierces flesh. The guardian crumples before petrifying, making another one stumble, and in an instant Yunho turns to run.

“Get ready!” he shouts. Only a few more feet to go.

“Hurry!”

Mingi’s arms shaking to keep the wheel in place, the prickling sensation of danger snapping at his neck, a silver cage dangling tantalizingly close to the ground with just enough space between the bars to reach through…

“Got it!”

Mingi releases the wheel. It spins wildly in the opposite direction, the cage shooting back up to the ceiling, but the two of them don’t stick around to see it finish. They sprint straight into the group of surprised guardians with defiant cries, blades at the ready but mostly barreling their way through. Yunho doesn’t dare drop his guard to tuck the sextant safely into his pack. He just clutches it tightly to his chest with one hand while the other keeps him at arms-length from the jaws of death.

They may have accidentally wandered into the temple’s central chamber, but getting out isn’t a matter of luck. Yunho and Mingi weren't naive enough to assume nothing would go wrong. Hongjoong had drilled it into their heads early on to always be prepared to retrace their steps, and now that foresight might save their lives.

Yunho’s mind is a repeated mantra of “run, turn” that he murmurs under his breath as they go backwards through their winding path here.  _ How are there still so many guardians? _ he wonders as they’re met with room after room of more creatures joining the chase. Then he catches sight of a newly-formed one peeling itself from the exposed earth on the walls and realizes with a shudder that there was never going to be an end to them.

Not soon enough, they make it to the ladder. The landing is still pitch black, but running in a straight line from the door lets them hit the metal rungs dead-center. Yunho waits for Mingi to get a few rungs up before he follows, heart somewhere in his throat. The sounds behind them haven’t ceased. Whatever magic that created the guardians isn’t stopping them from coming through the door. The phantom feeling of claws pulling at his feet makes it easy to ignore the burning in his legs as Yunho climbs faster than he’s ever climbed.

Halfway up the ladder, they can see sunlight again. Two thirds of the way up, that sunlight starts to distort, and an alarm goes off in Yunho’s head.

“What’s happening up there?”

“The ground is swallowing up the exit,” Mingi says tersely, followed by a colorful set of swears.

“Double-time it!”

And despite their bodies protesting, they do. The sting of Yunho’s palms and the ache in his legs are small prices to pay for getting out of here alive. He can’t see past Mingi, but he can tell how much light is still reaching them. He can tell they don’t have much time left. Just a few more rungs…

“You’re almost there, hurry!”

Yunho physically can’t go any faster, despite seeing the ground knitting together ever closer. If he could only get his body through━

His hands reach for the next rung and meet air. For one dangerous moment, Yunho starts to fall backward. Then Mingi yanks him up onto solid ground before the earth comes together with a hostile hiss, sealing all of that ancient magic within.

Immediately, Yunho falls to his knees. Fresh air has never tasted so sweet on his tongue. He’s alive, Mingi looks unharmed, they’ve lost their pursuers━

“Yunho.” Mingi’s eyes are wide, staring at the other’s empty hands. “The artifact. Please tell me you didn’t…?”

“No, I’ve got it here.” Yunho pulls the artifact from where he’d shoved it down the front of his shirt, and the look on Mingi’s face would be funny if he hadn’t been so panicked. (It’s still pretty funny.)

“Don’t  _ scare _ me like that. Jesus.”

The punch Mingi gives him is half-assed. He’s clearly exhausted. But there’s a real smile on his face, and that muted energy is still contagious.

“Good work back there,” Yunho tells him. “We’re still a great team.”

“Partners in crime,” Mingi agrees. He’s already forgotten his exasperation. “Do you think the others finished already?”

“Only one way to know.”

It’s tempting to stay like this on the ground, letting his exhaustion bleed out of his limbs and into the earth. Yunho gets to his feet before it can tempt him any further. He brushes dirt and gravel and what’s probably guardian guts off of his clothes before pulling Mingi up to stand beside him.

Their solo adventure is over. It’s time to head back to camp and find out what their next steps are. Maybe it’s due in part to the post-battle high running through Yunho’s bloodstream, but he’s more than ready to save the world. Despite everything they’ve had to overcome and still have to face, they can do this.

He can feel it.

Ω

Time passes in strange intervals, San finds, when he’s in a place seemingly separate from the rest of the world. He knows some amount of it has gone by since he first woke up in the demon’s lair, surprised that he wasn’t dead, but he can’t say how much that amount is.

At times, it seems to drip by painfully slow, making him hyperaware of every detail: the metal pole he’s been bound to, the lack of circulation from his hands being tied above his head, the sharp sting of wounds left to the open air. Then sometimes he’s in enough of a daze that he snaps back to the present without knowing how long he’s been gone.

One thing San does know: he’s seeing more and more that still being alive and kicking isn’t the better option. At least dead he would have been spared ever seeing the inside of this nightmare of a lair. San is unable to turn his head away from witnessing first-hand just how much this particular demon enjoys playing with its food. He sees as one by one, her other prisoners are tortured and killed, the searing images only matched in intensity by the pungent smell of decay and the screams of the poor souls unlucky enough to end up here.

There’s a gag shoved in San’s mouth that prevents him from making a sound. Once that gag is removed, he knows that it ends with being drained of his life force or possessed. The demon’s host body grows ever worse despite its string of feedings, so it will need to choose a new host soon. The last prisoner other than San was killed some of that indeterminable amount of time ago. It’s only him.

But knowing his fate doesn’t change that San is unable to do anything about stopping it. There’s no way out of these binds, especially with his slew of untreated injuries ━ the demon had stopped him from bleeding out through the wide gash on his thigh and called it a day. No grand escape attempts are in his future. And with the gag preventing San from biting his own tongue, ending his own life is out of the question.

He settles for letting his expression glaze over and trying to dissociate from every part of this reality, though the images that provides are no better than the ones in front of him: blood, pain, those eyes begging him to help, to  _ do _ something. San tries to convince himself it’s numbness he feels as his failure is replayed back to him on an unending loop.

Ω

A lifetime later or in no time at all, San is pulled from his semi-conscious daze by the gag being ripped out of his mouth. Some part of him almost thinks he’s being rescued, until he sees the demon’s decaying face inches from his own and has to stifle the scream that gathers at the base of his throat. When her mouth stretches wide in a smile, it looks skeletal.

“Time for the main event,” she tells him, mockingly cheery. “Any last words from the lost little sheep?”

One thing hasn’t changed. San still has no desire to play her games. He seals his lips shut and glares at her with as much dignity as his battered body can muster.

It’s time. San takes a breath to brace himself, hears terrible laughter, brings his tongue down flat against his bottom teeth, and ━

And has his jaw seized roughly by bloodstained hands, her iron grip a reminder of the inhuman strength that lies beneath the surface. Any attempts to still bite down are met with more than enough resistance to halt San’s efforts. He’s not dying today.

“That was almost a good try,” the demon muses. “And so much hate in those eyes, too. I look forward to taking them from you.”

San shuts those same eyes tight. Even if it makes him a coward, he doesn’t want to see the end when it comes. This isn’t what he wanted. He was supposed to help save this world and move to the next one on his own terms, side by side with the people he loved. He doesn’t want this. Not being trapped here in his body with no control while a monster helps bring everything he’s worked for it its knees. A soul that dies from shriveling away as a host doesn’t move on like if they’d been killed; that soul is lost to the void with no hope of returning.

_ Not like this. _

The demon leans in. San feels lips press against his own, parched and terrible and, god, the  _ smell _ . Darkness gathers where they’re attached by what he’s only ever known as the kiss of death, preparing to jump between hosts. San still can’t turn his head.

Then suddenly the pressure disappears, and San feels warm liquid spatter across every inch of exposed skin. Its scent is coppery and sharp, cutting through the rot that had pervaded his senses for so long. When he opens his eyes, he first sees the look of shock on the demon’s face. Then he sees the blade protruding from her chest.

The blade retracts, she falls to the side, and San sees a stranger holding the other end of that weapon with another man close behind. Experience has taught San that trust will only leave him disappointed. He doesn’t trust the two newcomers any more than he trusted the demon. He also doesn’t have much fight left in him.

“Are you here to kill me?”

The taller one gives him a long look. “Not if you’re human, no,” he says, and San feels all traces of resigning himself to his fate leave him. His knees give out, body going slack against the restraints.

“Yeosang, untie him,” the same man commands.

The bindings around San’s ankles fall away first, then his wrists, and Yeosang’s arms catch him before he can hit the ground. He can barely move, let alone stand on his own. Yet, San’s stomach chooses that moment to finally betray him. He turns away from his rescuer as best he can before emptying its contents onto the floor.

One of them might say something else. San can’t be positive. He’s already losing the battle against the darkness overtaking his vision. This time, he goes gratefully into its arms.


	3. Chapter 3

San stares quietly into the flames of the fire, eyes following the sparks as they climb into the air before disappearing like they’d never been there in the first place. He’d thought that finally having a moment of rest after jumping from one personal Hell to the next would be either overwhelming or a welcome break. His time at these strangers' camp has been neither of those things.

It’s not anything against them, necessarily; San is just having difficulty sorting out the tangle of his own thoughts. He feels...strange. He’s grateful to be alive and himself, but there’s still all this untapped misery he can sense hiding behind doors he refuses to acknowledge. His insides feel coiled up and tense, like they’re preparing him for disaster, but he’s not sure what that disaster is. San doesn’t know what to do with himself.

The strangers have been remarkably kind to him in their hospitality, considering San’s first impression of them had been a fountain of blood. They’d taken San back to their camp after he passed out and insisted he stay to recover. He’s still not sure who they are, but they’d saved his life. A rescue like that isn’t something San can easily disregard.

The one who San has figured out is the younger of the two ━ Yeosang ━ is stirring some sort of stew over the crackling flames. The other man, whose name has yet to be spoken, is tending to San’s wounds, starting with the more superficial cuts on his hands and working his way down. The sting of disinfectant makes San hiss every so often, but he stays still. Getting taken out by an infection is definitely on his list of ways he doesn’t want to go.

When the man finishes treating San’s hands and moves to bandaging his arms, he finally speaks. “We should probably introduce ourselves, shouldn’t we?” he asks, fastening the first bandage in place. “Now that you’re able to stay conscious for more than a few moments.”

Normally, that might have sounded like a pointed jab. San sees nothing but calculated observation in the man’s expression.

“Choi San, average human. Trying to make the world a better place until I got turned into a demon chew toy.”

“Park Seonghwa and Kang Yeosang, both Crusaders. Also trying to make the world a better place.”

Crusaders. San is wary of them on principle. So wary, in fact, that he nearly misses the moment the man’s name slams into him like he’s been thrown back by another explosion. “Park Seonghwa?” he checks. “You don’t know a Kim Hongjoong, do you?”

Seonghwa’s hands stutter in the middle of wrapping the next bandage, making San swallow down a sound of protest. “Why do you ask?” he says, pointedly avoiding the question.

“I’ve been traveling with him. We were looking for━” San freezes. “At our camp. Where the demon took me, there was an artifact from an old nature spirit still there. I don’t know if━”

“Where is it?” Seonghwa asks suddenly. His eyes are sharp.

San can’t give him directions, exactly, because he wasn’t conscious for either leg of his journey here. He still does his best to describe the general area, and Seonghwa’s nod indicates that it must be enough.

“Yeosang,” Seonghwa tells the other man. “Find that camp and retrieve the artifact if it’s still there. It shouldn’t be left unguarded.”

Part of San wants to be grateful that someone is checking up on it, but he can feel himself get defensive regardless. “I still need it back,” he insists.

Seonghwa’s lips press together in a tight line, not giving him an answer either way. He accepts a bowl of stew from Yeosang before the latter takes his leave and passes it to San. Fortunately, the wounds on San’s arms are mostly covered, so Seonghwa moves to his legs while San takes one tentative spoonful. It’s...good. Excellent, even. San would be okay with sitting in silence and enjoying the warm broth running down his throat, but Seonghwa isn’t done with their earlier conversation.

“Hongjoong and I used to be close,” Seonghwa admits. “Even though we were two very different people with two very different views, we always understood each other. Maybe we still are close, in a sense, but things got so complicated.” He shakes his head almost imperceptibly. “How is he?”

San is hit yet again with a barrage of god-awful still frames and abruptly loses his appetite. What little stew he’s eaten seems to curdle in his stomach at the memory. “Eat,” Seonghwa tells him firmly when he notices the pause, but San can barely have one more spoonful.

If it were someone else, San would gloss over the big, ugly truth. Yet somehow he’s managed to stumble across the one person who deserves to hear what the man who San had once seen as this world’s savior had done.

“We split up looking for artifacts of power,” he explains. “Hongjoong’s spirit told him about a ritual to cast out the remaining demons, and we needed the artifacts to complete it. Half of us made it back. We were waiting for the others, but then everything went wrong.”

His fingers are white where they’re gripping the bowl too tightly. “Hongjoong was supposed to be with the others. He came back to find us for some reason. I woke up that night alone, went searching for the others, and Hongjoong was…” He hesitates, feeling bile threaten to rise again in his throat.

“He what?” Seonghwa presses him, not moving. His expression gives away that he’s expecting the worst, but San knows it must be the wrong conclusion. If Hongjoong was dead, instead…

_ Stop. _

“He made some kind of demon deal. I couldn’t stop him from going through with it, and now Wooyoung is dead.”

It hurts as much as he expected to say it aloud. When San looks up and meets Seonghwa’s gaze, he’s surprised to find anguish resting there before he remembers their shared history. “You knew him, too.”

“He would have become my Defender, had he not run away and Yeosang not stepped up to fill that role. I knew Wooyoung was with Hongjoong, but I never thought...I never imagined something like this.”

This time when San sets the stew aside, Seonghwa doesn’t stop him. Silence stretches between them with everything they can’t bring themselves to say. Seonghwa closes his eyes in that silence, collecting himself, and then he’s back to wrapping bandages around San’s injured legs.

“Hongjoong is my responsibility,” he says eventually. “I knew what he was and trusted him in spite of it, in spite of what my position called for. And now that Hongjoong has broken that trust, I’ll be the one to hunt him down. I swear to you.”

San doesn’t know what to think or say about the declaration, but he’s spared from answering by Yeosang showing up again at the edge of their camp. This place must not be far from there at all. San tries not to think about how they’re also not far from the cave that had become Wooyoung’s tomb. He’s mostly unsuccessful.

“I brought the artifact.” Yeosang holds out the spyglass for Seonghwa to take, then gestures to the bag slung over his shoulder. “I also packed some of your supplies, San, in case you’re not going back.”

“Thanks.”

San watches as Seonghwa examines the artifact in his hands, looking at both the spyglass and San with a focused intensity. San refuses to drop his gaze.

“Alright,” Seonghwa concedes. “I trust your story. And I trust ━ trusted ━ Hongjoong. If you really think there’s a way to cast the demons out, that’s something worth trying. You can have the artifact back.” He passes it over to San before turning back to Yeosang. “Get me one of the talismans.”

Yeosang rifles through one of the bags near the campfire, pulling out what appears to be a hand-stitched sort of brooch. Seonghwa lays it flat in his palm, murmuring a string of words under his breath, and San’s eyes go wide as the brooch starts to glow with a faint golden light. He’s seen the effects of blood-drawn sigils before, but this isn’t power from ancient sets of carefully etched characters. This is something else. Almost like…

“How are you doing magic?”

The glow fades. Seonghwa examines it for a moment before giving a low hum of satisfaction and acknowledging San’s question.

“Not magic, exactly,” he clarifies. “Paladins each have our own artifacts of power that we train to tap into. I can become somewhat of a conduit for my artifact’s energy.” He holds out the brooch. “If you need our help, you can use this talisman to call for our aid. We’ll be able to find you.”

If. That’s a very generous “if” Seonghwa is giving him. San tucks the talisman into his pocket and hopes such an “if” never comes to pass.

Seonghwa still looks like he has a lot he wants to say, but in the end he settles on a sigh. He gives San a simple “I’m sorry” that San neither accepts nor rejects. “Get as much sleep as you can,” Seonghwa continues. “In the morning, I’ll draw the sigils to transport you to the rest of your friends. If they’re still out there, I can get you to them.”

“Thank you,” San tells him, sincere. He means it. For the rescue, tending to his wounds, trying to give him hope again. It’s more than he needed to do, and San is grateful for every bit of it.

But being grateful still doesn’t mean he gets any sleep that night.

Ω

Mingi feels like they’ve been hiking for ages. Logically, he knows it’s an exaggeration. They’d already walked this distance once on the way here, and the downhill descent has allowed them to pick up the pace on their way back to camp. Still, he’s beginning to grow tired of walking.

At least the company is good. Their victory in retrieving the artifact seems to have helped shake Yunho out of the funk he was in before, and he’s mostly back to himself again as they keep each other occupied for the journey. They’re in the middle of a lengthy discussion on pre-demon strategy games when there’s a burst of light a few feet from where they’re walking, blinding in its intensity.

Mingi is drawing his daggers and assuming a fighting stance even before the spots in his vision have cleared. At his side, he can make out Yunho doing the same. Then the brightness dims, a figure starts to take form, and if Mingi didn’t know better he’d almost say that looks like━

“San?”

Yunho sounds as bewildered as Mingi feels. His sword sinks a few inches lower, moving to step forward, but Mingi shoots out a quick hand to stop him.

“Wait,” he says warily. Then, to the man in front of him, “First, you touch the blade. Then we decide how to react.” If this is an illusion, or worst case a possession, they need to know. They can’t afford to take chances.

San’s expression doesn’t change. He takes a step forward and lifelessly reaches out a hand to curl it around the metal of Mingi’s left dagger. No screams of pain, no smoking skin. Nothing. Mingi’s wariness falls away, but not his confusion. This is San, but how…?

Now that he really takes a look at San’s face, he can see the darkness there. Why? And why is he alone? Mingi has so many questions, he doesn’t know where to start.

Yunho must notice San’s expression, too, because he very gently asks, “San? What’s wrong?”

San opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again without a word. For a moment Mingi doesn’t think they’ll get anything out of him. A heartbeat, two, and something in San’s expression cracks, some invisible wall. He reaches out for whoever is closer and practically crumbles in Yunho’s hold.

When a choked sound comes from where San’s head is tucked against Yunho’s chest, Mingi realizes with a shock that he’s crying. That’s not in character at all. San hates crying, especially in front of other people, so what had happened to bring him to  _ this _ ? Yunho continues holding him, patting his head, but the concerned look he shares with Mingi shows that he’s thinking the same thing: something has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

For now, however, Mingi waits with his questions. He puts a hand gently on San’s back as a show of reassurance, to remind the other man that he’s here for him, too. And he waits. For as long as San needs, they both wait.

When San finally pulls away to face them, his face is streaked and puffy but his eyes are dry. “Sorry,” he tries to apologize, clearly embarrassed, but Mingi is already waving him off.

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists. “We’re glad to see you, even if we weren’t it expecting it so soon.”

San huffs out a laugh with no heart in it. “Yeah, me either. But you’ll never guess who I ran into that was able to portal me here. The one and only infamous Park Seonghwa.”

Yunho’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. Even Mingi, who isn’t privy to the whole story, knows that name. “I haven’t seen him in years,” Yunho says. “How did you find him?”

“More like how he found me. He and his Defender saved me from getting kissed after this one demon got a little too fond of me.”

San takes one look at the matching expressions of confusion on their faces and lowers his eyes. “I should start from the beginning.” He takes a deep breath. “Wooyoung and I got the artifact. Hongjoong joined us back at camp acting completely off, and he told us he’d had some sort of vision that we’d need help. We trusted him.”

Mingi’s stomach drops at the bitterness in those words. However this story ends, it’s not a happy one.

“While we were asleep, Hongjoong dragged Wooyoung off to a cave to sacrifice him to some alpha demon. I tried to stop them once I figured it out, tried to reason with Hongjoong, but...he cut Wooyoung’s throat. Just like that. Now Wooyoung’s dead, Hongjoong is missing, and I’m only alive because Seonghwa and Yeosang were hunting the demon who took me hostage. The end.”

Mingi doesn’t know what to say. What  _ can _ he say to something like this? Being recited back to them, it almost doesn't sound real. It might have been impossible to believe, if it weren’t for the teleportation, the lack of any other reasonable explanation, the very real anguish worn openly on San’s face.

“I should have known,” Yunho says, voice dangerously close to breaking. “I knew there was something off about his note, but I didn’t realize...”

“You couldn’t have known,” Mingi insists. They did know he was hurting, Yunho even more so, but there was no indication of how far that hurt would spiral. Not Hongjoong, of all people. Anyone but him.

“At least one thing didn’t go wrong,” San says a little bitterly. “I still have the artifact with me. Seonghwa made sure of that.”

He swings his bag around to the front and unzips the main pouch, only to frown at what he finds. When he pulls a spyglass out of the pack, it’s glowing gold, as if power is visibly trying to break through its surface.

“Was it doing that before?” Mingi asks him.

“No, not at all.”

“Yunho--”

“One step ahead of you,” Yunho says, having the same hunch.

The sextant he pulls out of his own pack is bathed in that same golden hue. Mingi watches in rapt fascination as the two artifacts seem to pull each other into orbit, demanding closer proximity until they finally meet in the slightest brush of contact. At once, they rearrange themselves. O-rings become gears and frames wrap around valves until only one object is left, shared between both of their hands.

“A compass,” San breathes. He doesn’t blink as he and Yunho turn it every which way, only for the tip of the thumbscrew to remain pointed in a single direction.

This, at least, seems easy enough to interpret. Though Hongjoong had never given them instructions beyond bringing the artifacts together, following this makeshift compass seems like the logical next step. And if the three of them are the only ones left…

When Mingi looks to Yunho, he sees San doing the same. There had never been anything so formal with them as an official chain of command, but they both know who that mantle falls to if Hongjoong is no longer with them. It takes Yunho a beat longer to realize the unspoken transfer of power that’s just occurred. He looks a touch uncomfortable at the prospect, but he squares his shoulders and takes the compass out of San’s hands.

“We’ll follow where the artifacts are telling us to go,” he says. “And from there we’ll figure out how to finish the exorcism.” He hesitates only once. “It’s what Hongjoong would have wanted us to do.”

It doesn’t escape Mingi’s notice that Yunho is talking about Hongjoong like he’s dead, instead of like he’s just stabbed them in the back. Like the other man had left behind his memory and not the bitter sting of betrayal. And though it pains him to admit it…

Maybe that’s for the best.

Ω

Hongjoong finally thinks he knows what it feels like to hit rock bottom. He’s been low before, low enough to make the last-resort choices that had brought him here in the first place, but this is a new level of the abyss.

He knows where he needs to go. He knows the only place he  _ can _ go. But he keeps blacking out at regular intervals before regaining control of his body, headed in a completely unhelpful direction. Judging by the blood that sometimes appears on his hands, Hongjoong can guess what Thymos does through his body. He can’t think about it for too long, or he’ll break. One undeserving death on his hands is already more than enough.

Until two days ago, Hongjoong thought he’d never know the feeling of being possessed. He’d never had to worry about such a thing. But by rebuking Teliko and her plans, he’d put a chink in that armor, a loophole large enough for Thymos to move in and set up shop.

Maybe Thymos had truly intended to uphold his end of the bargain when they’d made their agreement. Even if that was true, Hongjoong had presented a brand new opportunity during the summoning. The demon had taken it. And though Hongjoong is loath to admit it, Thymos’s deviation from the terms of their agreement is a matter of ability rather than choice.

Thymos had promised to influence other demons to Hongjoong’s advantage; he’s physically unable to do so stuck halfway within his host. Thymos had promised no more possessing humans; he had only half-possessed one Chosen and otherwise left other mortals for dead. That’s almost worse than purposefully not holding up his end of the bargain.

Hongjoong thinks━ No. Hongjoong  _ knows _ he made a mistake. In his despair, he’d truly seen it as the only option. He’d seen taking it as a necessary sacrifice. And what has it gotten him? Nothing besides Wooyoung’s loss and the broken trust of everyone he could once call his friend. He’s gained them absolutely zero.

There is one saving grace, however, that allows Hongjoong to occasionally wrest back control from the talons in his mind. The possession is not a full one. The chink in his armor as a Chosen hadn’t been a gaping wound. Hongjoong has to constantly focus on fighting Thymos’s influence lest he take over completely, but Hongjoong isn’t entirely gone. Not yet. And for now, Thymos is stuck in the confines of Hongjoong’s skin, unable to shake off his choice of host. Both of them are inconvenienced by this current arrangement.

That doesn’t mean that Thymos doesn’t still try to spin it to an advantage. Hongjoong can feel the demon prod at his brain to sift through any memories he can reach. Hongjoong knows it’s no accident when he starts recalling some of his worst ones in detail: Seonghwa’s look of hurt when Hongjoong had stormed off from their final argument, shade-Yunho’s purpling face as he’d struggled to breathe against Hongjoong’s chokehold before going slack, Wooyoung, Wooyoung, Wooyoung━

But Thymos hasn’t found anything yet that’s critical to hide. Hongjoong has made sure of that. The worst thing to come out of the intrusions is that they’re violating enough for him to regret not having a stronger shield against the onslaught.

This has been one of the longer periods he’s gone without losing control, nearly half an hour of uninterrupted progress in the opposite direction of the falling afternoon sun. He may not have enough strength to run while fending off Thymos’s barrage of mental attacks, but Hongjoong still makes his best effort to speed-walk toward his destination. The one benefit of his possession is that other demons have been giving him a wide berth. He doesn’t think he’d make it anywhere if he had to worry about being attacked every few minutes on top of losing control.

Which is why he’s genuinely confused when he hears the telltale hisses of Possessed when he comes across another section of what once had been the main road to Haven. Why have they decided to turn on him now? As he draws closer, Hongjoong hears the sounds of fighting, lays eyes on the opposing side of the skirmish, and realizes this isn’t about him at all. It’s about  _ them _ ━ his friends who are both outnumbered and struggling to match the Possessed horde’s blows.

Hongjoong knows that if they see his face, there’s a high chance they’ll kill him on the spot. San, at least, will likely have no qualms about inflicting a world of pain upon him before an inevitable end. That doesn’t stop him from sprinting in their direction. He has to help them if he can; even if Hongjoong himself has failed, he can’t let the others follow down that path.

Hongjoong’s legs freeze, not of his own volition. He feels his body lock up like a broken machine, and then he feels as Thymos controls him like a puppet on a string, dropping him behind an outcropping of rocks at the roadside. Hongjoong grits his teeth against the intrusion, strains to move even a finger, but to no avail. There’s no way to stop his head from craning out from behind the rocks to watch with unblinking eyes as the group barely manages to scrape by.

“Stop this,” Hongjoong chokes out, but he hears cruel laughter at the demand.

_ “Come now, is this not fun?  _ Thymos’s voice echoes in his skull.  _ Let us see how the little mortals fare against their betters. Which of them will be the first to fall?” _

Hongjoong doesn’t give him a response. He watches with bated breath and poorly hidden distress as the others change tactics and regroup. Two of the Possessed dive for Yunho, who hits the ground. His sword falls from his grip and slides across the dirt.

_ “And here I was thinking it would be the short one...a shame.” _

No. Hongjoong refuses to believe this is the end. Yunho can’t slip away from him like this after all the years of his life he’s given Hongjoong and his good-for-nothing Chosen status. He slams his consciousness once more against the invisible shackles around his body but makes no progress. “Please, let me help them,” he begs as a last resort. “They don’t deserve━”

_ “That is quite enough.” _

With nothing more than a brush of darkness against his insides, Hongjoong finds his mouth sealed shut. And maybe he deserves this, after all of his failings, but could the world really be so cruel as to take that punishment out on the others? If he’d asked himself that question a year ago, maybe his answer would have been different. Now it turns his view into tunnel-vision as San leaps to Yunho’s defense, as Mingi circles his own blades in a vicious circle around his body that swings just above his companion’s heads.

Even when the Possessed cry out and step back, even when Yunho is back on his feet and locking arms with the other two, Hongjoong can’t breathe. He doesn’t trust the illusion of the tides of battle turning. He’s been burned one too many times by this constructed concept of hope. Only when San fells the final enemy does Hongjoong let out a shaky breath, head bowing toward the ground when Thymos relaxes his hold. He hasn’t earned the right to cry over the others’ brush with death, but his shoulders shake all the same with how powerless he’d been to stop it.

By the time Hongjoong realizes Thymos’s hold has left him and the others are still within running distance, it’s too late. Not for the first time, he’s given the one thing he can’t afford to give: an opportunity. Thymos dives deep into the unprotected recesses of Hongjoong’s memories, who’s a beat too late to stop the intrusion. Hongjoong’s eyes roll back into his head as he falls writhing to the ground, hands clawing uselessly at his temples.

_ “So many interesting things in here,”  _ Thymos muses, a cruel edge to the words.  _ “Secrets, hidden desires, dreams you never dared to voice aloud. All very amusing. And here...ah, what is this? Something you hid so carefully from me, Chosen?” _

Hongjoong can feel the exact memory Thymos prods at, and he feels despair claw at his throat as sharply as the talons in his head. He had one job, one thing to keep safe, and he couldn’t even do that properly. The rest of Teliko’s plan presents itself in vivid colors behind his eyelids as it’s put on display for the parasite in his body to see. Even the bright glow of the Grand Exorcism at the end is dimmed by the harsh peal of laughter that drowns out any remnants of hope the vision had once made Hongjoong feel.

_ “Consider me impressed. You managed to keep this from me for an impressively long time. But you made an amateur mistake, Chosen: you let your guard down.” _

Hongjoong wishes he’d told the others about the full plan sooner. He’d seen how dangerous it would be and hadn’t wanted to worry them yet, but now they’re paying the price for his pride. Who was to say Hongjoong would ever come back to them in one piece and be able to tell them about the temple? Yet another foolish decision that had come crashing spectacularly down.

“It’s too late now,” Hongjoong says aloud through the strain. “The others don’t know about the rest of the plan. They’ll find a different way.” Better for Thymos to know their failings than to systematically hunt them down, potentially with Hongjoong’s own hands.

_ “I have to disagree. There are some demons I can think of that would be  _ very  _ interested in this plan your spirit concocted. It would seem wrong of me to keep it from them.” _

“No, you can’t━” Hongjoong starts to protest, heart dropping to his feet, but the claws in his mind are in too deep.

It takes but a small squeeze for his vision to gloss over with spots, leaving him falling back into darkness while that laughter rings clear and terrible.

Ω

Objectively, Wooyoung has always been beautiful. San isn’t blind; even before he became more closely acquainted with the vague swooping feeling in his chest, he could call that beauty what it was. But nothing compares to him when he’s in his element, in these few stolen moments before a growing wave of danger prepares to crash against their shores. The confidence painted on Wooyoung’s face makes him more attractive than he has the right to be.

They’re up against something bad ━ bad enough that not everyone might make it back. What was it, again? Possessed, or actual Demons, or something worse. San can’t remember for sure. He does know that looking at Wooyoung now simultaneously terrifies him and makes him feel like they can single-handedly take on the entire world.

Once they had to say aloud what they were thinking in these moments. Now that conversation happens with no words at all, understanding passing between them in a silent language entirely of their own. Wooyoung's eyes soften at their corners. "Are you sure?"

When San nods, a smile blooms on Wooyoung's face, and something much deeper blooms in San's own chest. He's never needed reminders of why he should keep fighting, of who he's fighting for. That smile is answer enough. The angle of the sun makes Wooyoung look almost golden in its light.  _ Ethereal _ , San thinks to himself without an ounce of shame. And then a line of red carves itself across Wooyoung's throat, like the afterthought of a mad artist's brushstroke.

Wooyoung's face contorts in shock and pain. He falls to the ground clutching at the open wound. San reaches out to hold him, but he can't move forward. A sea of viscous red traps him in place, slowly dragging him down to its depths. Though he tries to scream, no sound comes out.

This isn't how it had gone, had it? This is all wrong. No one will find him here. No one will realize he's gone. No one━

San wakes with a jolt, scream still lodged in his throat. He sits ramrod straight as he catches his breath, blanket clutched tightly in his still-shaking hands. It was just a dream, he reminds himself. He's alive and as well as he can be. But it's hard to shake that feeling of being pulled under, of losing that last bit of light that had kept him going.

On the opposite side of the now-cold campfire, Mingi is still fast asleep, light snores issuing from his lips at regular intervals. Yunho is sitting away from the others to keep watch. If San doesn't speak to one of them and tether himself back to this world, he fears he'll lose his mind. Part of him doesn't want to bother the only other person who's still awake, but...it's Yunho. At least he'll pretend that San's not being a nuisance.

San reels in his shaking long enough to rise to his feet and throw the blanket around his shoulders instead before heading to the camp's edge. Yunho looks surprised to see San awake, but he doesn't turn him away. He motions to the spot next to him where San gratefully takes a seat.

"What are you doing up?" Yunho asks him.

"Can't sleep." At the question in Yunho's gaze, he feels like he should elaborate, but he's hardly in the presence of mind to relive the nightmare. "I'm sorry," San says instead. "I haven't been myself since I got back."

This isn't supposed to be him: withdrawn, quiet, not ready to step up and set the mood for the others. He feels like the only thing he's brought back with him is bad news.

"I know...he isn't gone forever," San continues. For a long moment, he doesn't know how to finish the thought. He hopes that instead of reassurance, for now Yunho will give him time to think. He isn't disappointed. "I know he's supposed to be somewhere better. But we might never see each other again, and we...we were supposed to face the end together."

_ We all were _ , he thinks to himself, but he doesn't even want to think about touching the complicated mess of feelings he has toward Hongjoong right now.

"I don't mind. Neither does Mingi," Yunho assures him, seeing San is finished. "We're just glad to see you're in one piece. And I'd be more worried if you weren't torn up over him being gone. I know Wooyoung was special to you."

San tries. He really tries to read more into the words, squinting at whatever implication might be underneath. Then he decides to go for it instead, getting out a halting, "You know that I...that we..."

"We assumed it was something important to both of you. No need to explain."

It's stupid, how San feels something lift from his shoulders. He'll still take it.

"And I know this might not make you feel any better," Yunho continues, cautious, "but if everything goes to plan, you might see each other again soon."

That truth is a bittersweet one. It relies on a lot of hope, unfounded trust, and certainty in their own demise. For worse or for better, San will do his best to keep holding onto all three. And for now? "Can I please have a hug?" he asks, voice small.

Without a word or a moment of hesitation, Yunho obliges.

Ω

When Hongjoong comes to, he can feel that something is different. He's awake, yes, but he hasn't been handed back full control. Thymos refrains from letting him move or speak. Whatever happens next, he's been pulled out of his own head only to bear witness.

"You've finally arrived," Hongjoong hears Thymos speak with his voice.

The impact of that violation hasn't fully registered before he sees who the demon is addressing, and Hongjoong feels his blood run cold. These aren't Possessed. These aren't even ordinary demons. The shadowy beasts before him are greater demons, powerful creatures who fall just below Thymos in rank.

"Why have you weakened yourself so, Thymos?" one of them asks. "Taking a mortal vessel, limiting your power...it seems unlike you."

"The vessel is no ordinary mortal; he is one of the Chosen. Having access to his mind is beneficial for all of us.”

A lie. Thymos makes it sound like his choice. Hongjoong knows that he's already taken all of the information he could possibly need, only bound by the power of the prison he'd unwittingly trapped himself in.

"The Chosen had a plan," Thymos continues, despite Hongjoong's weak attempts to close his mouth. "His companions were collecting artifacts of power to banish us from this realm while the remaining mortals escape to the next. But in order to complete the ritual, they need to make it to the forgotten temple that once stood in Haven. We cannot allow that to happen."

"What do you propose?" another demon asks.

"We strike. Our forces invade the city and destroy the temple before it can be used against us. Whichever mortals survive can be hunted down after they scatter."

The images of Thymos's plan flash through Hongjoong's thoughts as if they're his own. The part of his mind that’s still his cries out against the destruction, but it falls on deaf ears. He sees the demons turn to each other, a silent discussion taking place between them, and then he sees the moment humanity's fate is sealed.

"Very well," one of them agrees. "We'll gather our forces and prepare to follow your lead."

Thymos's satisfaction is palpable. He projects it throughout Hongjoong's body like he's rubbing salt in the wound, too deliberate to have any other intention. The other demons' expressions, though generally hard to decipher, appear to already be reveling in the destruction they plan on causing. Hongjoong hates all of it with a passion. And yet, he bides his time.

The demons and Thymos spend a few minutes more discussing the logistics, confirming potential weak spots and the final target of their attack. And yet, Hongjoong bides his time. Not yet. The other demons disappear into thin air as they transport themselves away from here, leaving Hongjoong alone at last with his captor, who remains caught up in plans for the massacre ahead. And now, Hongjoong strikes.

He assaults his own mind, digging his own fingers in to pry out the intruding claws. Angry screams try to repel him back, sharp edges make him struggle for it, but Hongjoong is able to wrest back control. His footsteps are lumbering and sluggish, but they're his.

Despite all of the damage that’s already been done, there are a few choices Hongjoong can still make right. He needs to get to his destination before he's unable to make any more choices at all. Because other halves come in a lot of forms, and maybe once Hongjoong had found his. Now that other half is his best shot and helping him fix what he's let fall apart in his hands.

Ω

Yunho has never been inside Haven. Before the demons, the city had been a large one, a center of commerce and festivals, but he'd never felt the urge to go. He'd had all he needed within the confines of his own town. Even after the veil was torn open and he heard about groups fleeing to Haven for safety, he'd stayed put. When the people he'd loved had moved on without him, when the demons got too much for Yunho to hold his territory and defend himself, when he finally admitted that he wasn't going to survive much longer on his own? Hongjoong had been ready to assume his role as Chosen. Their fateful meeting years before had made Yunho his first choice of companion for the journey ahead, and there had been no more reasons for Yunho to run and hide. He didn't need city walls when he had a new family with whom to stand and fight.

Still, Yunho knows enough. He knows that Haven is the last remaining piece of human civilization as they know it, save for where the Crusaders established their base a few miles away. The city's imposing walls are as much a fading symbol of hope as they are last-chance defenses. And when it comes to their trio's symbol of hope...that hasn't held up quite as well after making it through Haven's gates. The makeshift compass falls apart into the original two artifacts as if they've crossed an invisible barrier. It's led them here but no further.

A safe distance away from the entrance, they pull themselves onto an empty side street and broach the subject of what they're supposed to do next. Some part of him, Yunho realizes, is still waiting for Hongjoong to make the final call, to give them that line of encouragement as a last push toward their goal. He doesn't have an issue with accepting the role of de-facto leader, no. He's actually glad that the others were unanimous in the decision, leaving no room for infighting or unspoken jealousy. It still feels wrong for anyone else to assume the position, considering the circumstances. Or, not wrong, but...strange. Unsettling.

"We know we're in the right place," Yunho says. He projects his voice more than usual, just like he's seen Hongjoong do, but still keeps an eye on the alley's entrance for any stragglers. "Somewhere in Haven, we can put an end to all of this. Ideally, we'd start with a lead instead of poking around the whole city and having people ask questions. Not everyone will be as comfortable with exorcisms or any mention of spirits as we're used to." He looks between the other two. "So...any ideas?"

"We could probably start with any churches," Mingi throws out. "An exorcism is just another kind of ritual, and those generally need either blood sacrifices or holy ground. Teliko doesn't seem like the type for blood sacrifices from what I know of her."

That probably makes the most sense. Cathedral towers and grand entrances will be easy to spot walking through the streets, and it's easy enough to come up with a cover for wanting to be on holy ground with the constant threat of demons. Yunho is about to agree when San stops him with a measured, "I might have something better."

When San sees they're both listening, he presses his lips together in some kind of decision before continuing, "There's someone here in the city. Wooyoung knew him from when they were both training as Crusaders. I only have a general idea of where he might be, but if he's been here long enough and has at least some kind of knowledge about spirits..."

"Then he might know where the artifacts were taking us."

Yunho will let them gloss over some of the details in that story. He can understand why only one of them was privy to certain details about Wooyoung's life without it being spelled out. A past that polarizing was safer the closer it was kept to the heart.

And Yunho also understands that sometimes being the best leader means knowing when to follow. He sweeps a hand back toward the general direction of the road, nodding at San to go ahead. "Lead the way."

On the surface, Haven hasn't changed much from what Yunho imagines it was like in simpler times. Buildings haven't fallen into decay, streets haven't cracked down their centers, and wild ivy hasn't crept over every available surface. What does remind him of the world just outside these walls is the city's inhabitants themselves.

Most streets are disconcertingly empty, and what civilians there are outside don't try to hide their suspicion. They walk briskly, limbs tucked close to their bodies and with sideways glances thrown in every direction. These people are survivors. They haven't stayed alive for this long by trusting others. Yunho swallows down the melancholy that comes with that knowledge and keeps an eye on their own backs.

The neighborhood San leads them to is at the edge of one residential district. He has no more detailed directions to give them, but this search radius is certainly an improvement from the whole city. They prepare to buckle down and scout out what they can without being too obvious about their search. Then Mingi finds a painted sigil half-hidden underneath a patch of sage and their options are suddenly very narrowed. Whoever lives here knows enough about demons to mark themselves with a protection rune and enough about the current situation to keep it hidden from prying eyes. Even if this isn't the man they’re looking for, it may still be the best shot they have.

San raps twice on the front door. A few seconds pass before it opens just a crack, revealing at least three chains stretched across the gap. Yunho can make out a single eye and a patch of shaggy hair. "Are you Choi Jongho?" San asks, which makes the man's visible eye narrow.

"Who's asking?"

"We're friends of Jung Wooyoung. We were hoping to get your advice on a situation with artifacts of power. Trust me when I say we wouldn't be here if it wasn't important."

The man disappears from view. Yunho almost steps in himself to tack on to San's explanation, but then he hears the successive  _ click _ of chains being unhooked: one, two, three. The man ━ Yunho  _ knows  _ he must be Jongho ━ reappears with the door open in earnest. He gives each of them an appraising once-over, and nods to himself when he seems to have found what he's looking for.

"Wooyoung, huh?" he asks, still wary but not as hostile. "Come inside before someone hears you talking about demons on my doorstep." It would almost sound like a joke if it weren't for his eyes sweeping over the area as they file inside. Yunho can only hope that paranoia is backed by knowing too much rather than not knowing enough.

They tell him everything. Not all of the secrets and hidden moments tucked into their history, but of Teliko's plan and how everything has threatened to fall apart. For their entire explanation, Jongho sits with his hands folded together in his lap and his body absolutely still. His expression hardens when San loosely describes their lost friend's demise before it falls back to a steady neutral. When the story comes full circle to showing up on his doorstep, only then does Jongho show any signs of life.

"I told him," he says, resigned. "I warned Wooyoung multiple times that getting twisted up with spirits and Chosen would get him killed. Even if he believed me, it never stopped him from wanting to look for trouble." He taps his fingers on his knee for a long moment, silent. "But maybe he was right. Maybe he was actually making a difference. At least he seems to have done more than me, living on the fringes of the city and staying out of sight from the Crusaders and anyone else."

Maybe that would have been Wooyoung's fate, too, had he not found people worth fighting for. That kind of sacrifice had to be worth something, didn't it? Despite the bitter, bloody end of those good intentions? Another thought Yunho shakes from his head before it can take root.

"San meant what he said before," Yunho tells Jongho. "We have these artifacts of power for the exorcism, but not a location beyond the city itself. Is there any place you can think of that would be ground for a spirit's ritual?"

Jongho snorts. "There's dime a dozen churches popping up almost daily around here, with how scared shitless everyone is about a demon attack. Everybody suddenly wants to be saved when they realize they might be staring death in the face. But I doubt a spirit would care about any of those."

He frowns as he thinks. "There's always...actually, I might have an idea. When Haven expanded to hold all of its people, back before any of us were born, part of it was built on top of the old city center. At least one of those buildings was a temple. It's anyone's guess if it's still accessible, but you could check it out."

"And it was important?"

"Important enough to some people that I know it existed. Take that as you will."

An old temple, even abandoned, sounds like a much better option than sticking their heads into churches at random and trying to piece the artifacts back together. Yunho will gladly take this option. One look around the room tells him Mingi and San are thinking the same.

"Can you take us there?" Yunho asks, something thrumming beneath his skin. It feels like a new wave of hope. That's exactly what all of them could use right now.

"Please," San urges when Jongho hesitates. "If not for us, then for him.”

Jongho's expression twists at the words, the look he gives San rather accusatory, but he doesn't argue further. "Fine. We'll wait a few more hours until after the sunset━"

An explosion suddenly sounds from outside, the force of the blast shaking the room. All four of them are on their feet and armed in an instant, immediately on guard. The steel hammer balanced in both of Jongho's hands is proof that old habits never really die.

When the shaking stops, the Earth holds its breath in too-quiet stillness. Then Jongho's front door erupts into a shower of splintered wood. Three monstrous demons rush inside, the air crackling around their bodies from not being restricted within mortal vessels, and unearthly roars replace that silence.

They charge.

Ω

If he's being honest, Seonghwa is exhausted. Admitting that kind of weakness is something he can already hear the other Crusaders chiding him for, but one can only handle so much pain and death before it starts to wear on the soul. He would never dream of shirking his duties. He and Yeosang are still going to bring down demon after demon until this world is cleansed or they're both dead. Seonghwa just wishes he could give himself a longer break than these brief moments of almost-peace at their camps in the evenings. It's a wish that's as earnest as it is futile. 

"So," Yeosang starts, swallowing the last mouthful of his stew, "San and the others."

"What about them?"

A waste of a question if there ever was one. Yeosang's raised eyebrow makes that perfectly clear. "You know what I mean, Seonghwa. Should we go and help them, especially since they're two men down?"

Part of Seonghwa wants to agree. The persistent threat of demons aside, a side trip like that would almost be a welcome distraction. But even with that insufferable demon who'd held San hostage finally dead…

"Not for now. We still don't know if their plan is even a viable one, considering it came from a spirit. And besides, I gave San the talisman. He can call for us if they end up needing help."

Yeosang takes a sudden interest in inspecting a loose string near the knee of his pants. "And Hongjoong?"

Hongjoong. Seonghwa's stomach sinks at the name. Every inch of him had wanted to call San a liar, to refute his story, but nothing came out of the other man's mouth that sounded like anything less than the truth. Hongjoong had made the worst of calculations. He'd set himself down a path of no return, and now Seonghwa needs to find him before he does anything worse.

"I know what we're taught about personal vendettas," Seonghwa says, "but that's not what it is. I need to correct a mistake I made a long time ago. Once we finish sweeping the immediate area, we'll try to find his trail. More than likely he'll head...wait."

The energy inside his body flares a moment before the sigils around their camp light up with a red glow of warning, the piercing wail of the alarm making Yeosang jump. Their perimeter has been breached. Seonghwa grabs his staff from beside the campfire, prepared for a fight.

He's prepared for whatever creature has made the grave mistake of marking them as its prey: Possessed, demon, desperate mortal scavenger, or otherwise. He's not prepared to see Kim Hongjoong stumble and collapse to the ground just inside the wards.

Seonghwa's brain cycles through shock, relief, horror so fast that he can hardly process it. He'd wanted more time to come to terms with the situation. He'd wanted more time to shove some of the pain and regret into little boxes in the back of his head and separate the Hongjoong of his memories from the one he planned to end. His mission has just become much too real.

"Something's wrong," Yeosang murmurs, low enough that only Seonghwa can hear. "He's possessed, but...not entirely. I didn't think that was possible."

Making the impossible possible seemed to be a common theme for Hongjoong, for better or for worse. Now that Yeosang mentions it, Seonghwa can see the other man's state for what it is. Hongjoong's body visibly fights against the foreign intrusion, withering away in places and looking dangerously pallid in what remains. His eyes, unfocused and cloudy, clear only somewhat when he clenches his jaw and shakes his head. Something has gone very wrong here, even beyond what Seonghwa already knows.

"Seonghwa," Hongjoong gasps out, finally recognizing the shadow in front of him.

"Hongjoong."

"I'm sorry for showing up like this. I didn't...have another option." Hongjoong's face contorts in a grimace of pain before he grits his teeth and regains control. "Something happened. I made a mistake."

"I know," Seonghwa tells him coldly. "San found us first."

"Fuck."

Hongjoong looks away, scratching at peeling skin with nails that Seonghwa now sees are caked with blood. That image brings forth the anger that had been sitting locked behind his ribcage. It constricts his chest until he feels like he can't breathe unless he directs that anger at its source.

"I can't believe you," Seonghwa spits. "You knew what you were risking; you knew what you stood to lose. You knew what a monster like that was capable of. And to  _ Wooyoung _ , of all people. How dare you show your face here?"

Saying it out loud isn't cathartic. If anything, it makes him feel worse. What Seonghwa doesn't voice is the guilt that comes along with that anger, at not being there to sense that Hongjoong was slipping. They'd had their differences, but they'd known each other, almost too well. Seonghwa should have known this was a possibility. He should have at least reached out before it got to this point instead of shoving their history down and ignoring the Chosen on the loose that duty dictated he should have never let go to begin with.

"I'm sorry," Hongjoong apologizes again. It's almost worse how much he sounds like he means it. "I'm not asking for forgiveness. It's too late for that. But now that I've failed what I was meant to do, it's time for someone else to take over." He meets Seonghwa's gaze with eyes that have seen far too much. "Please, Seonghwa, end it. End me."

There's no hesitation in that request. Hongjoong has been wanting this for a while now, enough to come to terms with it. Judging by the half-healed wounds scattered across his chest, he's already tried doing it himself. A possessed Chosen...Seonghwa has never heard of such a thing outside of pure theory. He has no concrete idea of why Hongjoong can't die by his own hands. But banishing demons from this plane and sending souls on to the next one is something he can do, no matter how much it might pain him to do so.

He fights down a shudder and says simply, "I will." His anger has passed, replaced by resignation and a deep sorrow that he can't entirely tuck away.

"Yeosang, restrain him," he orders. His Defender moves to drag Hongjoong deeper into their camp, who puts up no resistance except for the war inside himself.

And so Seonghwa prepares the long, complicated process of exorcising one of the Chosen, who were never supposed to need such a thing in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fasten your seatbelts.

Chaos. San feels like he's drowning in it. The lingering suspicion and overwhelming silence of before has exploded into a sea of sharp claws and gnashing teeth that threatens to pull him under.

The rest of their trio and Jongho are still nearby. None of them are sure what brought on the sudden attack, after so many months of inaction, but they know that they need to defend the city. If Haven falls, it's over. Privately, San thinks the end of the line was drawn the moment they set this plan in action. Wouldn't it seem only right, for the end they're racing toward to be pitted against that of their enemies? Fate was funny that way.

Haven's paranoia is doing them some good now, at least. The city's assembled forces of self-taught civilians meet the wave of demons head-on alongside San and the others. Anyone without the necessary holy water coating their weapons at least manages to slow down some of the attackers. Despite the casualties that abound, they manage to mostly keep the demons to the fringes. The bloody scale still stands in their favor.

San is personally more than happy to kill as many demons as he can, both for his own catharsis and in the memory of those who didn't make it this far. It's almost like he can see Wooyoung's sharp eyes right beside him, guiding his hand and smiling as the demons fall. Like he's proud of what San is doing for both of them. The loss is still a raw wound, still stings to the touch, but its lack of permanency carries San through the fight. The emotions lying heavy on his heart will only last until he falls or until they've done what they came to do. He can manage another day ━ or maybe another hour, if they demons have their way.

Halfway through his next swing, San stumbles. Something knocks solidly into his back, and though he keeps his balance, the spyglass slides out of the open gap in his bag before he can stuff it back inside. He has half a second of relief that it wasn't lost in the fray. Then it's as if a switch flips on the battlefield. Every demon in his vicinity turns away from their current opponents to pin San in the middle of their sights. The distraction helps their side dispatch some of the horde, but it certainly doesn't help San, who's just become enemy number one.

Demons aren't supposed to have the ability to sense energy that comes from spirits. At least, not anything less than an alpha demon. But somehow, they must know about what kind of artifacts to keep an eye out for, what San and the others plan to do with them. A small voice in San's head whispers where that information might have come from, but it's irrelevant to dwell on now. The only thing San should be worrying about is staying alive and killing enough demons to create an opening for Jongho to continue leading them to the temple.

Speaking of Jongho...while not a Crusader by title, the man is a force to be reckoned with. He wields the hammer in his hands like it's no heavier than a stick of wood, twirling it in complicated patterns that return to their starting point with a circle of carnage in their wake. San understands now, why he was being considered for a Defender position. Wooyoung was fast and clever. Jongho is strength and control personified.

Somehow, they stay alive. So single minded is San's focus that he nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears Jongho's voice a few feet away.

"The demons are contained. For now," he says to the others. There's still small fights that have broken out near the walls, but they have breathing room, enough to talk for just a moment. "I'd put bets on them knowing what you're planning. We need to push toward the inner city if you want any chance of completing that exorcism."

Yunho's going to say something, probably an affirmative, but a horrible sound seems to come from every direction at once. San looks on with wide eyes as the bottlenecked enemy forces coming through the gates swell, and then more demons than they can count suddenly come streaming over Haven's walls.

"Run!" Yunho shouts.

San doesn't need to be told twice. He pulls a stunned Mingi behind him and takes off beside the others, heart beating too fast in his chest. It's only starting to hit him in earnest now, for some reason, that this may very well be their last chance, their last stand.

The talisman in San's pocket burns hot against his leg. Not yet. But when the time is right, he knows what he has to do.

Ω

Hongjoong has been well acquainted with pain before. He's been stabbed, sliced, scarred, and a multitude of other ways in which they've been intimately introduced. But this...this is something new.

He's never been so far deep into its arms that he doesn't know where he ends and pain begins. It's as if every part of his body has been set aflame to push out the darkness that's bonded itself to each molecule, a flame that doesn't care if it burns out the human soul that still occupies that space. If this is what an exorcism is supposed to feel like, Hongjoong wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy.

For brief moments, he's in control of his body. The pain is sharper then, but at least he's himself. Though he doesn't have the strength to say much, he can see Seonghwa's eyes shift when they meet his. He doesn't stop his chanting or his sigils, but he sees it: he sees the change.

Those moments, however, are fleeting. Hongjoong is lucid long enough to feel the soreness of his throat from screaming, feel the rawness of this wrists where he's struggled against his binds, and then Thymos is taking over once more. He's sure the demon isn't making this easy for Seonghwa.

If Hongjoong were anyone else, this would be over in minutes. He could just as easily be killed without any of the extra bells and whistles. But with this mantle that he's still not entirely sure is either a gift or a curse or somewhere in between, he can't simply be killed. He knows this to be true, because he'd tried. The instant he found out he’d trapped this evil inside of his body, he'd tried. Like most of his recent decisions, that had ended in nothing but Thymos's grating laughter.

When he's not lucid, most of Hongjoong's blackouts are just that: blackouts. He's left alone in the darkness with nothing but the continued, if muted, sensation of pain. Only once, he opens his eyes to find himself on his knees with the ceiling bathed in a blinding light. He shrinks away from the brightness, not of his own accord, and when a face appears in its center, Hongjoong realizes this for what it is: a memory.

Teliko moves her lips, but he can't hear a sound she utters. Her voice is impossible for his mind to reconstruct. Yet he can still feel in his chest what he'd felt during that first meeting, the first time she'd named him as her champion. Chosen. It makes his heart ache with a different kind of pain to remember a time before he'd lost his faith in her, in her plan, in his ability to see it to the end. Before he second-guessed everything he knew.

Once, he'd seen that suspicion as the only way to protect himself and the people around him. Looking at her face again now, not closed off and cold like how he'd twisted the memory but open and  _ loving _ ...Hongjoong sees that he was wrong. He reaches out for her once more before the memory dissolves into darkness, and like dunking his head into a cold bucket of water, Hongjoong awakes.

"Seonghwa."

The name rolls off his tongue before his eyes are even open. When they do, he sees the other man peer at him, gaze hard, until he realizes Hongjoong is the one back in control. Though, if anything, that discovery seems to bring him more pain. He has a book open in front of him now, chanting words off the page in a language Hongjoong has never heard. Interrupting him might set back their progress with time Hongjoong knows they don't have. He still has to say this in case he doesn't get another chance.

"Seonghwa," he starts again. "You've seen San. You know where the others might━ AHH!"

Hongjoong breaks off with a shout as the pain in his chest spikes, leaving him dangerously short on breath before it plateaus somewhere between awful and unbearable.

"I'm sorry," Seonghwa tells him, voice tight and a bloody hand on one of the sigils. "We're almost there."

Almost there. Hongjoong knows what it means, and yet he'll hold out thinking too hard on it for a little while longer. "They need to know the next step," he says through the pain. "The exorcism. They need to get to Haven’s old temple through ━  _ Fuck  _ ━ the catacombs. It's the only way."

He'd thought all hope was lost in getting the message to them, but if Seonghwa talked to San, if he somehow knows where the other man was going...maybe there's something here. Maybe Hongjoong can undo a little more of the damage he's done.

"I'll tell them," Seonghwa promises. "You have my word."

There are few people in this world whose word Hongjoong would trust implicitly. This man is one of them. Whatever ounce of fight was keeping Hongjoong conscious for long enough to speak dissolves to nothing. He slips back into darkness with something almost resembling hope in his peripheral.

Hours pass. Or maybe minutes. Hongjoong comes to with the unsettling feeling of being split into two, the exorcism finally starting to take effect. The sand is almost finished collecting in the bottom of his hourglass. It's hard to say he's at peace with it, but things are as they should be: Hongjoong will no longer keep Teliko's gifts from passing to someone who will use them more wisely, and his friends will know how to finish the plan he hopes will still put an end to it all.

And he'll be...somewhere. Someone. Teliko had spoken of the New World so passionately, but is there a place for him there? Is it something he deserves?

"Seonghwa..."

"I'm here." The sadness in those words is hidden under a veneer of calm. Hongjoong hears it all the same.

"I realized something. I kept wondering what was in it for her, for them. I thought there had to be a catch." He chokes on air and can't find his breath long enough that he feels light-headed, though it comes back to him in shallow spurts. "There's not a catch. It's just  _ love _ . She didn't want anything in return. Isn't that incredible? How didn't...I see it before?"

Even as he says it, Hongjoong can feel himself fading. He lifts his head to see Seonghwa's heart breaking openly on his face. Something changes, in the air and in Hongjoong. Some kind of shift.

"I'm glad you found your peace," Seonghwa tells him, and then he drives his staff through Hongjoong's heart.

Hongjoong was already in pain. He feels no more of that. The quiet gasp that leaves his lips is more from Thymos's presence leaving him, finally clearing his mind. Hongjoong can almost pretend it's relief that makes his body slump to pull against the restraints. It worked. He's free.

Seonghwa pulls the staff from its target with a small, broken noise half-halted behind his teeth. Hongjoong feels like he's floating as the other man unshackles his arms and gently lowers him to the floor, allowing his head to loll back against the wall. The warmth encasing his hands almost escapes Hongjoong’s notice until he realizes Seonghwa is holding them too tightly.

Hongjoong had not asked this of him lightly. He'd known he himself wouldn't be the only one hurt. The gratitude he feels is something he couldn't put into words even if he still did have the energy to speak. He's so tired…

"Go," Seonghwa says in a whisper. How strange of him to say, when he's clutching Hongjoong's hands like he never wants to let him leave. "I'll look after them."

That must be the assurance Hongjoong needed. This time, the fade to black feels not like slipping under but like letting out a deep breath. Hongjoong thinks of everyone who stood by his side and is caught between equal parts regret and gratitude as he leaves this world.

His last murmured words to Seonghwa are ones of thanks.

Ω

For how many buildings Yunho has been in that are crumbling, rotting, or in other various states of disrepair, he's never been more wary of the walls around them.

He, San, Mingi, and Jongho have temporarily barricaded themselves inside of the first place they could find that was still in one piece. They'd needed to take whatever option they could for a moment to regroup, tend to their injuries, and plan their next steps. It works. Yunho is still restless at the thought of another swarm bursting through their thrown-together defenses.

He's not the only one. San keeps pacing up and down the back wall, hand intermittently slipping into his pants pocket in a strange habit Yunho somehow hasn't noticed before. Mingi can't stop holstering and unholstering his daggers. Even Jongho looks fidgety, despite spending more time off the open road than any of them combined. 

They'll be out soon. Yunho just needs to control the itch under his skin for another few minutes, even if it seems to be getting rapidly worse. It's actually much worse than an itch now, he realizes, veering more into the territory of a splitting migraine and━

Yunho cries out at the sudden pain, falling to his knees. He can feel San immediately at his side, reaching out to help in any way he can, but it does nothing for the splintering sensation in Yunho's head.

"What's happening?" Mingi demands. "Did one of them kiss you?"

Yunho shakes his head, realizing too late what a terrible idea that is. After the wave of nausea it causes, he starts, "No. I don't know━" but the pain extends to his whole body and makes him cry out again.

His vision goes fuzzy around the edges for a few seconds' warning. Then lights bloom behind his eyes and paint an image from a realm that's not their own. A vision, Yunho realizes. Was this what it had been like for Hongjoong? Had they put him in this much pain?

"Yunho."

Yunho whips toward the sound. The lights have dimmed to a steady glow now, revealing the space he's standing in. He has form, somewhat, but he can only turn in place. More importantly, he sees  _ her _ . He's never laid eyes on her before. He's only heard stories. Yet the instant Yunho meets her gaze, he can immediately put a name to her: Teliko. Hongjoong's descriptions, despite the poetry they occasionally devolved into, would never have been able to truly do her justice.

As Teliko draws closer, Yunho doesn't move. He watches as she extends one glowing hand toward his chest, placing a finger directly above his heart. "It's up to you now," she says in that melodic cadence Yunho can't name. "You've been Chosen."

Teliko's Chosen...Yunho knows who that is, and it's not him. He wants to protest before he sees the truth of it in her eyes. Flashes of a memory that isn't his appear before him to spell out the fate of the man who'd previously held that title.

Gone. Yunho isn't torn between the anguish of Hongjoong's loss and the relief that he had escaped a different version of his story's end. He feels them both in equal measure, sweeping over him like crashing waves in a storm. He feels as Teliko draws out the moment to let him sit between those few precious seconds, to give him time to mourn when he has no time at all. The storm swells and passes.

"I understand," Yunho tells her.

Teliko nods. She moves her hand directly in between Yunho's eyes, and Yunho is thrown back to his own world in a rush of fading colors. He opens his eyes to his head pillowed on San's lap and three concerned sets of eyes fixed on his own. Even before he says the words, Yunho thinks at least two of them can tell the knowledge he's been given. They can see it in his face.

"He's gone," Yunho confirms. That wave from before rises to the surface but doesn't break. The storm has already had its moment. "She chose me to finish it."

Silence pervades the empty room. San's hands still where they've been running through Yunho's hair. Yunho lets the silence stretch. He can't stop time, but he can give the others as much of their own moment as he can.

Jongho is the one to grab his hammer from where it's been leaning against the wall, fire in his eyes still burning bright. He meets each one of their gazes without wavering. "Then let's finish it."

Ω

Normally, Yeosang doesn't have to do this alone. That's not to say he isn't used to the regular routine: sharpening weapons, taking stock of supplies, going down the mental checklist he's perfected with each new camp they've set up. He just isn't used to not having Seonghwa's help.

The Paladin is quietly sitting some distance away from where Yeosang is working, staring at some point in the distance. In front of him is the patch of earth they'd dug out to bury Hongjoong's body, the petals of some wildlands flower from their store of herbs spread out in an intricate pattern over the dirt. By tomorrow, Yeosang knows, the wind will have swept those petals away, wasted ingredients carried away on the breeze. Not once does it cross his mind to say this aloud.

When Yeosang has nothing left to occupy his time, he sits at Seonghwa's side. He still doesn't say a word, not wanting to break the atmosphere, but he does put a comforting hand on the other man's shoulder. Seonghwa acknowledges it with a brief, pained smile.

His eyes are still dry. Yeosang wonders if that's for his benefit, or if Seonghwa has really disciplined himself so strictly that he can hold back the show of emotions swirling around inside his chest. He's never been one to let his heart overwhelm him. That's one of the reasons he and Yeosang get on so well.

"I hoped for so much better," Seonghwa finally says. His eyes don't move from the petals. "When I first met him, I knew he was different. So many of the others let it go to their head, or were too scared to act, or no longer wanted to think for themselves. Hongjoong was just... _ good _ ."

Seonghwa's voice shakes for a moment before he swallows it down. "I know he looked up to me. He told he himself, however begrudgingly. Even when we disagreed, even when he walked away, I was proud of who he'd become. I didn't tell him that enough. I should have...tried harder to find him, maybe, or not let him leave on such a sour note. Something."

Yeosang does the kindest thing he can do for Seonghwa and holds his tongue. He doesn't tell him the "I told you so" that he knew he'd end up saying when he'd briefly met Hongjoong himself so long ago. He doesn't comment on how he still can't understand Seonghwa's soft spot for the man, even if he's always trusted Seonghwa enough to turn a blind eye to it. In the end, Yeosang cares about his partner being happy more than he cares about being right.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he says instead, "but remember the ones who are at fault here. Not you, not entirely him. And I know you're still in pain, but we need to prepare for whatever comes next. We need to relay that message."

Seonghwa doesn't look at him at first. Yeosang isn't one to doubt the truth of his words, but he does hope the other man can see that truth, is ready to hear it. He's not disappointed. Seonghwa takes one last moment for himself. Then he meets Yeosang's gaze without flinching.

"Get our weapons," he says simply, a "thank you" hidden just behind the words. He rises with new resolve and the aura of power around him crackling with renewed purpose. Even the magic, just like Yeosang's gut, feels the oncoming storm.

He just hopes they're strong enough to weather it.

Ω

Years ago, Jongho had sworn himself off getting involved in the affairs of spirits and demons. He'd seen his training for what it was supposed to be: a noble plan to elevate those who were willing to learn into a position of power great enough to make a difference. He'd seen those, like Park Seonghwa, who'd worn the mantle with pride and made a real difference in giving their world more time. He'd also seen the tension and mistrust that the title "Crusader" could sow both within their community and among those outside of the Institute.

Jongho can't say whether or not the Crusaders have amounted to something worth saving. He does know that it's not for him. Yet here he stands in the middle of this group of people only a shade away from strangers, surrounded on all sides by enough demons to steal every soul in this city. Jongho might have felt something close to amusement if he wasn't so focused on pounding said demons into submission.

This fight is no longer about winning; it's only about staying alive and buying time. The plan that the others have is half-baked and uncertain, from what he can see, but Jongho is no idiot. He'll take a shot at getting out over blindly fighting until they're all dead. Dying for nothing isn't a fate he can get on board with so easily. There's no hesitation as he leads the push to Haven's center, mowing down anything that gets in his path.

With any kind of barricade broken and the city's defenses overwhelmed, there's at least a low risk of accidentally cutting down someone on their side. The streets are flooded with demons from this unexpected push, the creatures' change of heart coming from what Jongho suspects has everything to do with the artifacts of power that showed up on his doorstep today. What would Wooyoung say if he could see him now? "I told you so", most likely. Almost certainly.

As they near the city center, the wave of demons starts to noticeably thin out. Someone more naive might attribute that to a victory, but to Jongho it seems more like the eye of a hurricane. With this wave finished, they may only have a short time to prepare for the next. And that's assuming they still don't get taken out by the time that next wave hits. He's in the middle of pondering their options when a hand yanks him by the back of his shirt into an alley.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Jongho trips. By the time he's steady on his feet and ready to rain havoc down upon his attacker, he realizes it was Mingi who pulled him, an expression between mild fear and an apology on his face. The others are right behind him.

"We only need a minute," Yunho says quickly. "Let's take it while we can."

They haven't gone through the same grueling training he has, Jongho has to remind himself. Though self-taught survival is effective in its own right, they don't fight the same way he does. They can't shut down any feelings of fatigue and pull their bodies' strings past the point of total exhaustion. He trusts that this minute will be enough to carry them to the end, because after this there won't be any others.

What Jongho doesn't trust is San standing a few feet from the rest of them, holding a sewn brooch in his palm and concentrating hard enough to put deep creases in the space between his eyes.

"What are you doing with a Crusader talisman?" he demands. Wooyoung had trusted this man, yes, but Jongho had trusted that Wooyoung was this group's only link to his former comrades. This is downright suspicious.

San hardly breaks his focus. "Calling a friend," he says without elaborating, and the air pressure around them suddenly drops. Jongho's ears pop just as a flash goes off at San's side, revealing two men standing in its place.

Jongho almost laughs at whose faces he sees. His past had waited until today to catch up with him all at once, it would seem. Just as surprising as Seonghwa and Yeosang's appearance is how none of the others seem fazed beyond the initial blaze of light, save for Mingi before Yunho tells him to stand down. Jongho shares a brief nod with Yeosang and reminds himself that how everyone knows each other isn't currently a priority.

"I waited to call for help until it was absolutely necessary," San tells the duo rather apologetically, which Seonghwa waves off.

"It looks like you need it. I sent an emergency signal to the Institute before we came and asked them to send more Crusaders. You aren't the only ones not wanting the last city to fall. We all know what happens if it does."

"We might not have a choice," Yunho says delicately. "Haven is already overwhelmed. Defenses and the city guard are decimated. Even if the attack is pushed back, there won’t be enough people left for it to be anything but a ghost town. Teliko's plan is our only chance."

Seonghwa looks grim. "I know what you plan on doing. There was a...situation recently." What knowledge, Jongho wonders, makes Yunho's expression harden at those words? "I'm meant to relay you the rest of your plan: the temple for the Grand Exorcism is only accessible through the old catacombs.”

Of course. Jongho almost wonders how he hadn't thought of it before, but he supposes the connection there isn't an obvious one. How fitting that their one escape from certain death should be by walking straight into its memory.

"Can't you just portal us there? Like you did for me?" San asks.

"It's not that simple. I sent you to your friends because of the connection between you. I brought Yeosang and myself here because of my connection to your through the talisman. There's no connection inside the catacombs or the temple."

"I can take us there," Jongho volunteers. "I already promised to escort you, didn't I? And I know where the entrance to the catacombs is. We're not far."

"Good," Seonghwa says, "because our break is over."

A little more warning would have been appreciated. Jongho barely has time to turn around before he's met with a pack of demons splitting off into their alley. Before they can get boxed into a dead end, the group pushes past those stragglers and continues their march down the main street. Having a set destination seems to embolden them as much as it does the demons. It's easier to fight tooth and nail when you know where you're going, when you know exactly what you're fighting for. Even Jongho feels the fire in his heart burn brighter, despite fighting side-by-side with people he'd run away from, against an enemy he'd tried to avoid for years and for the sake of something he'd never trusted. Old habits, he supposes. Or else he'd never really gotten over not being able to make a difference. The details don't matter so much now.

The going is slow as they close in on the city center. Forward progress is halted by attacks on all sides that leave only seconds of breathing room in between. Jongho is ready to do something incredibly stupid or incredibly dangerous or both when he notices the tide of the battle start to draw away from its all-out assault on their small group. The Crusaders are here. Now is their best chance at getting somewhere.

One call to the others is all it takes from them to follow his lead as Jongho leads them down a different side street toward the old glassworks factory. He'd used this shortcut many times before when trying to be discreet going to and from the market. Today it might save them from the potential suicide of walking headfirst into a battlefield. Heavy emphasis on might.

"They're behind us!" Mingi shouts.

Jongho doesn't turn to look, but he can hear hostile sounds growing louder behind them despite the fast pace they're sticking to. Damn it, this wasn't part of his plan. They need to be undetected by the time they cut through the factory so they can skirt around the fringes of the battlefield. A handful of demons they could take, but this entire swarm...?

There's still something else Jongho can do, despite the traitorous voice in his head telling him not to. So now Wooyoung wants to be the voice of reason? It's a bit too late for that, Jongho thinks with more amusement than he expected. Maybe it's true what they say about endings making one sentimental.

They burst into the factory with the pack of demons hot on their trail. Jongho holds the door open until everyone makes it through before he slams it back shut. The others are halfway to the other side of the building before Yeosang notices they're still one person shut. "What are you doing?" he asks, hesitating.

Jongho doesn't answer. At least, not out loud. He stands with his back against the door and braces himself against the wall as best he can. A purposeful thud hits against metal hard enough for him to grit his teeth.

"Turn left outside the exit," he says to the others. "The catacombs will be the second building you see. Look for the stairs to the basement." The door shakes harder. They’re still standing in place. "Go!"

Finally, they move. That last lingering doubt in Jongho's chest leaves him in a sudden rush. It's almost enough to mute the pain he can feel erupt in his back as the creatures of Hell force limb after limb through the material of the door. Almost. But despite how hard he'd tried to do so, Jongho can't forget the promise he'd made that first day he'd set foot in the Crusader Institute. Until his very last breath, he'll fight against the forces of darkness in this world in hopes of making a better one.

Before the others disappear, Jongho meets Seonghwa's eyes one final time. It's barely a glance, too far away for him to be certain. It might be no more than a trick of the light. But in that moment, Jongho swears he almost looks proud.

Ω

This isn't the first time Seonghwa has experienced someone else's sacrifice, has witnessed as a friend gave their life for what they perceived to be part of a higher purpose. Though the loss is still a painful one, he's far from letting it break him. He follows at the back of the pack as they keep to the fringes of the open battle in the city center, unable to avoid the fighting entirely but for the moment not overwhelmed. If the others get any ideas about turning back for a rescue, he's here to stop them. The greatest disservice they can do to Jongho's memory is to waste the chance he's given them.

A part of Seonghwa ━ not naive, but hopeful despite knowing the odds ━ had almost thought the demon hordes would be the limit of the attack. The Crusaders who'd inserted themselves into the fray would have been able to match their power for the entire length of a prolonged assault. The demon general towering in the center of the square crushes those hopes to dust.

A creature with that much strength was never meant for this realm. All any of them amount to in its eyes are insects to be crushed. Even Seonghwa's years of seeing all different shades of death can't stop him from averting his eyes from the carnage surrounding the beast as it extinguishes Crusaders and remaining civilians alike.  _ Get to the catacombs _ , he repeats to himself while he cuts down the next demon.  _ Nothing else matters _ . Nothing else  _ should  _ matter. All that stands between them and the building with the entrance is a few fights more. But to Seonghwa...it does.

He averts his eyes no longer, discarding the shame that brief moment of weakness brings for the waste of time it is. He'd been brought here for a reason: to protect San and the others and give them a fighting chance. He'd lived for another. Seonghwa can't stand by and watch his comrades cut down while he runs in the other direction.

When he reaches out to Yeosang to still his progress, the Defender takes one look at his expression and is already nodding in agreement. It makes something warm ache in his chest despite how many times the other man has already proved his loyalty. Seonghwa would never ask Yeosang to do this against his will. A person's ending was for them and them alone to write onto the pages.

"Get ready to make a break for it!" Seonghwa calls to Yunho over the noise. "Yeosang and I will keep them distracted."

"But…!" To his credit, Yunho stops the protest one word in. He may not agree, but maybe he can understand. And maybe Seonghwa can understand now a glimmer of what Hongjoong saw in him. "Good luck."

"And you, as well."

Goodbyes are a luxury they can't afford. Seonghwa and Yeosang launch themselves directly into the fold. Their push to the battlefield's heart isn't sloppy, but it's louder and flashier than they're accustomed to. A good distraction is one that's dramatic enough to draw attention and deadly enough to hold it. Seonghwa and Yeosang are nothing if not deadly. They fight back to back in perfect sync, cutting down demon after demon. Had Seonghwa been more proud and less jaded to these battles, he might have kept a headcount. As it stands, he's not sure if there will be anyone left to share the final number with. That doesn't mean they're not going to try.

At the edge of his vision, Seonghwa can see Yunho lead the others into the building Jongho had instructed. A few flights of stairs and they should be home free. He hopes for the best, but he'll fight his hardest in case it amounts to nothing. He and Yeosang just need to...where is Yeosang? Seonghwa tries to think past the haze to when they might have been separated during the battle, and fortunately catches sight of the Defender's face before he can curse himself over the missing memory.

"They're inside," he says, planting himself back on Yeosang’s left. He pierces another demon through the chest before it can get too close. "We need a better plan. These small victories mean nothing if the general is still━"

Something gleams in his peripheral. Seonghwa ducks out of the way just in time to avoid a blade that nearly cleaves him in two. He knows the weapon almost as well as his own, but that doesn't make sense. They haven't veered from being on the same page since they'd first been put together as a potential match. What had Yeosang even been aiming for if not...?

Ah. Seonghwa sees Yeosang's eyes, really sees them, and his heart breaks at the inky blackness he finds there. 

"No...not you, too." He'd lost sight of him for, what, minutes? Time became something of a nonentity when he was locked into combat. Somewhere in that time, a demon had forced its way down Yeosang's throat. Somewhere in that time, Seonghwa had failed him.

Yeosang ━ the creature that's stolen Yeosang's body ━ gives Seonghwa a grin that's far too wide for his face. "This should be fun," he says. Then he lunges.

This demon is not Yeosang. It could never hope to be half the bright soul that Kang Yeosang was in this world. But it has Yeosang's memories and all of his skills. Any delay in actually executing the movements ingrained into Yeosang's body balances out with the very intimate knowledge Yeosang has of Seonghwa's fighting style. The most difficult opponent is always the person who knows you inside and out, who trained with you since practically the first time they could properly handle a real weapon. Their blows are mirror images of the other as they cross blades time and time again. It would almost be easy to pass the whole thing off as a rigorous sparring exercise, were it not for the manic expression still carved into Yeosang's face.

Seonghwa has the sudden, violent thought that he wants to rip that terrible smile away. His hands twist the staff just past the point of absolute control in a move he's never attempted before, the blade on its end drawing a line of red across his Defender's cheek. Yeosang jumps back with a hiss of pain. Seonghwa sees the opening and almost wishes he hadn't noticed. He begs himself not to take it. Then he's swallowing down that selfish thought and running Yeosang through.

The film over the Defender's eyes disappears, his expression returning to his own. Seonghwa is there to catch him as he falls, gathering him into his arms despite the blood pooling around his middle. This isn't right. This isn't fair.

"I'm so sorry," Yeosang chokes out. "Seonghwa, I didn’t mean..."

"It's okay," Seonghwa reassures him. "You did well." His voice sounds oddly steady to his own ears, overcompensating while he tries to hold it together for these last few moments. He refuses to add to Yeosang's pain. He can feel a different pair of Crusaders above them, fending off demons while Seonghwa gets the privilege of the one goodbye he'd never wanted to say.

"Rest now. I can take care of everything else. Don't I always?"

Yeosang's eyelids flutter dangerously close together as he tries for one last smile. His grip slackens on Seonghwa's shirt, a rattling breath comes from his lungs that only Seonghwa can hear, and then his eyes close in earnest. They don't open again.

Seonghwa is alone. This world has taken the last thing away from him that he held dear. After all he's done to save it, he's been denied the kindness of writing his final pages with someone else to share the burden. At last, there is nothing holding Seonghwa back.

He lays Yeosang gently back on the ground, unable to give him the proper resting place he deserves. He lays two fingers over the tattoo on his hip with a whispered blessing on his lips. Energy jumps along his limbs like electricity when it reads into the meaning of those words, at their implication. A howl looses from his lips with the weight of all the loss, all the injustice, all the pain he's endured for the sake of what he still believes to be the greater good.

Seonghwa is more monster than man as he charges back into the fray. He cuts down what feels like legions, the tattoo growing hot to the touch as he connects with his powers on a level that he was told never to attempt. He can feel the moment he loses control of the shackles that he'd trained to keep around the energy's neck, turning it loose against all who would dare stand before him. Flesh and muscle are eaten away as it grows, consumes, but Seonghwa can barely feel the pain. He's already fixing his sights on the demon general, which has finally taken notice of the white glow taking form around his body.

Seonghwa has given himself over to his power's will to become its sword of light. And before that light extinguishes him for good, he's taking this monster with him.

Ω

The doors to the catacombs are locked. Mingi would be lying if he said he hadn't considered the possibility, but it's still an inconvenience he doesn't want to deal with not right now. Not when one loss is still fresh and they might have just piled on two more.

What was Seonghwa thinking, staying back like that? And what was Yunho thinking, letting him go without a fight? Mingi had never known the Crusader personally, but he's seen enough self-sacrificing attitudes from his friends to last a lifetime. For once he wishes someone would prioritize staying alive over throwing themselves headfirst into danger.

Luckily for them, the catacomb doors are also old. San keeps watch while Mingi and Yunho ram their shoulders into the old wood, throwing their bodies with enough force that the lock gives way. The battle outside masks the sound from any ears that might have heard, which is more than a small mercy. Getting themselves cornered in underground tunnels seems like a horrible next step.

The tunnels themselves are pitch black once they make it beyond the light of the entrance, until Yunho grabs one of the old torches off the wall and ignites it with the lighter in San’s pack. Unlike the maze they'd been fearing, however, the layout is rather straightforward once they can see a few feet in front of them. Side rooms and scattered dead ends aside, all paths generally lead one direction: forward. They keep a brisk pace as they make their way through the darkness.

Mingi almost doesn't realize they've made it inside the temple entrance until their source of light is extinguished without warning, bringing them to a halt in a stumbling cluster of arms and legs. He hears the sound of San rustling through his bag for the lighter, but then the bag starts to glow from within. Sure enough, when he pulls the two artifacts of power out from their resting place, they're letting off enough light to illuminate the telltale high ceilings and marble walls. Debris and rubble are strewn across the abandoned space, but the temple's presence is unmistakable. They're close.

"Move the largest stones you can carry and seal the exit," Yunho tells them. "We don't want any surprises." It's kind of him to frame it as others not getting to them rather than them not leaving. Mingi appreciates the gesture.

He and San pile up a barricade in front of the doorway while Yunho takes the artifacts to scout ahead, the artifacts’ glow still bright enough to light both of their ways. Strange, how this close to the end Mingi suddenly feels like they have all the time in the world. He's gone so long without stopping that lingering outside of their final destination makes it feels like days could pass up on the surface without them being any the wiser. Then he remembers the two men keeping up their misdirection on that surface and carries his next block of stone a little faster.

Yunho returns seconds after they declare the barricade finished. "Did you find it?" San asks him, the closest to hopeful he's sounded over these past few days.

"I think so. The inner room of the temple is just down the next hallway. The closer I got, I felt a kind of pull."

Good news is something they haven't taken for granted in a long while. Mingi feels a knot loosen in his chest and sees that relief echoed in San's face, as well. He also feels the inevitable goodbye like a lump in his throat.

"So, this is it." Yunho looks down at his feet before he meets their eyes again. When he continues, his voice is strained.

"This has been...I don't even know what to call it. I saw things I never wanted to see, and I lost more people than I ever wanted to lose. Sometimes I felt like we were crazy for even considering we could do something about all this. But..." He trails off, swallowing hard.

"But we were always there for each other," Mingi finishes for him. "Not all of us made it this far, but the three of us did. We made it to the end. And that promise we made to each other about fighting back? We're making that a reality."

Yunho gives him a shaky smile, a silent “thank you” clear in his upturned lips. He opens his mouth again, probably to cut to the logistics of it all, but a loud banging suddenly comes from the wall near where they're standing. Mingi's daggers are drawn before all of his senses process the noise. "What was that?"

"It sounds like something's trying to break through."

San strides forward to run his hand along the wall, tapping on sections at random intervals. The banging dies out just as quickly as it had started. One more tap and San pauses to trace over something in the stone before he turns back to the others. "There's some kind of maintenance hatch," he says grimly. "There must be a pack of them that tunneled through the dirt instead of going through the front entrance."

Forget what Mingi said before about their time starting to stretch long and easy. The clock has finished ticking, and that time is up.

"But maybe we can seal it?" San suggests. Mingi is already heading back over to get more fallen debris. He'd had the same exact thought.

"Or take our chances with starting the exorcism. We might be able to finish in time," Yunho argues behind him.

"That's a lot to risk on a 'might' when we don't know━"

San suddenly stops talking. Mingi turns around, confused at the sudden silence, and sees the other man's eyes wide with shock. Then he sees the shadowy claw retracting from San's torso, returning to the hatch that's been cracked open just enough to let death through the gap.

San stumbles. Only sheer disbelief keeps Mingi on the move instead of stopping and staring, catching the other man before he can collapse. San isn't dead yet, but this is a mortal wound if there ever was one. The blood he's coughing up onto Mingi's shoulder says as much. Three of them might not make it to the end, after all.

"Yunho!" Mingi yells sharply.

The other man starts, shaking himself out of his own frozen state with a fresh wave of pain passing across his face. "Is San…?"

"I have him. Now cover me."

Fighting is something they can do. Accepting that the once-vivid soul balanced in the crook of his arm has already started his journey to the next world alone isn't something Mingi can let himself do right now, nor is wondering how the hell they're going to get a window to kick this ritual into gear. But he can stand side by side with Yunho, his one free hand holding its weapon in an iron grip, and stop these monsters from hurting anyone else he loves.

San lets out another wet cough. The hatch swings open a second later to send a swarm of monstrous demons pouring through the opening. Mingi hears someone let out a broken battle cry and is surprised to realize it's his own voice doing the yelling. Blows rain down in quick succession, pushing them back despite each enemy they cut down. These demons aren't just a reconnaissance group or a pack of rogue fighters. One of the alphas has sent an army after the artifacts. This isn't a fight they're going to win.

"Go start the ritual!" Mingi shouts to Yunho.

"Mingi..."

Mingi chances one look at the other man's expression and sees understanding there. He knows. They won't be seeing each other again after Yunho steps foot outside this room. Mingi has already come to terms with it. He's not the one who needs to make it to the end, and San shouldn't have to die alone. "Look for me there, okay?" he says, forcing a smile before he slashes at his next opponent.

He doesn't look Yunho's way again. He feels the other man grab his arm in a bruising grip, more words than they have time for hidden in that pain, and then he's gone with their final hope for saving this world. It's up to Mingi to make sure gets the chance to put that final hope to use.

The demons haven't slowed, despite the forces of good being down another man. Mingi has to step back as he alternates between protecting the two of them and rooting around in San's pack between attacks. His saving grace comes in the form of an amulet he hadn't known was in here, something Hongjoong had given all of them seemingly a lifetime ago. One pricked thumb and the fabric grows hot in his hands before he launches it at the swarm before him, wincing as it goes off in an explosion of smoke and fire. A series of pained screeches confirms that the charm has done its job; the demons should be temporarily incapacitated. He's bought himself a minute, if he's lucky, but it will have to be enough.

Deeper inside San's pack, Mingi finally finds what he's looking for. The three charges San had stored for getaways or emergencies are quickly armed and thrown as far to the edges of the room as Mingi's arm can manage to get them. He wishes he had more charges. He wishes he had more time. But no matter what, he's not letting anyone through to Yunho.

San is still holding onto him with as much strength as he can muster, blood dribbling from his lips onto Mingi's shirt. He's past being able to speak, so Mingi doesn't say a word. He takes San's bloody hand and places it underneath his own on top of the detonator. This is for everything and everyone that's been taken from them.

The shadows before them start to move again, multiplying tenfold from the reinforcements that are pushing themselves through the hatch. San's hand twitches beneath Mingi's own. They press the button.

The temple walls come down around them, the ceiling fissuring across its center before it bows and collapses. Yunho is sealed safely inside the temple’s innards, protected by a barricade no man nor demon can hope to break through.

Mingi and San leave this world with one last victory.

Ω

Yunho makes it inside the inner temple just as he hears a loud explosion rock the foundation of the building.

An avalanche of stone and other debris falls just outside the entrance, trapping him inside with the artifacts and his own thoughts as company. Yunho knows what Mingi did, what he must have been planning the moment he saw they were being overwhelmed. He lets out one ragged breath and tries not to think about the fates of his friends. They're all counting on him now to end it: Mingi, San, Wooyoung, Jongho, even Seonghwa and Yeosang.

Hongjoong.

There's a statue at the head of the room with an altar near its base, not unlike the other temples Yunho has been in before. The pull he'd mentioned to the others earlier brings him to that altar, leads his hands to place the artifacts of power upon its surface. Their glow flickers before it doubles in intensity, casting long shadows across the floor. A low rumbling sounds below them before the altar splits into two halves and reveals a basin underneath.

A cynical part of Yunho almost wants to curse at the symbolism. Even after all that's been ripped away from him, still this requires more sacrifice? He pushes that anger down before he draws his blade and holds a palm above the basin.

Just before he slices it open, he hesitates. This will kill him. Yunho already knows that to be true. It will send on anyone who's possessed, exorcising them en masse without having to individually seek them out. But what about those who don't have a demon holding their body hostage? What of the remaining survivors?

Then a voice he's heard only in a vision speaks simultaneously from within his head and from the temple's walls. "Yunho..." Teliko says, more gently than she’s ever spoken, "There's no one else left."

She shows him scattered impressions of Haven falling, of the area outside its wall scorched and destroyed by war, of the Crusader Institute finally succumbing to the onslaught that's besieged it while their best warriors were in the city. The demons and the Possessed are all that remain. Yunho is truly alone.

"Oh."

What an empty feeling it is, at the thought of being the last. It doesn't feel special, or like some kind of privilege at all. It just feels lonely. Maybe Hongjoong had been right before when he'd said that Yunho would never be able to truly understand him. At least he won't have to be the last for very long.

"It's time," Teliko coaxes him. Yunho can feel his anger dissipate until it's like he never felt it at all. The losses he suffered had been in spite of trying to do the right thing, not because of it. He should be at peace with himself and his choices before he brings it all to completion.

_ This is for all of you _ .

Yunho opens a line of red across his hand and lets the blood run into the basin. A rune appears on each side of the altar, and Yunho places a palm flat on each marking's surface. He closes his eyes and lets the energy that Teliko had gifted him flow in an unstoppable current, pulsing bright and powerful in his veins. When at last he opens them, the runes are lit up in a brilliant blue that shines even brighter than the artifacts themselves, which now hover inches above the altar's surface.

Is this it? Yunho doesn't feel any different, except for...no, he can no longer feel that energy in his veins. It's run completely through him and back to the source. More than that, it feels like some of his own life force has gone with that energy. Or all of it. Yunho lowers himself to the ground when he no longer has the energy to stand.

"You've done so well, my Chosen," Teliko tells him, a warmth to her voice Yunho has never heard before.

If she says more, Yunho can no longer hear her. His world goes white, but he feels no pain. Only a plushlike softness and the bittersweet feeling of victory as he falls away.

Ω

The first thing Yunho feels when he wakes up is a sinking disappointment. Is this the New World that's awaited him all this time? It's gray and foggy, and there's a suffocating feeling hanging over his head of wanting to be anywhere else.

But...it doesn't seem like a new world, not exactly. Yunho's own body looks like he's seeing it through a haze, like it's more of a memory than an actual form. Like he's in some kind of Purgatory between where he was and where he's meant to be, somewhere between reality and inside his own head.

Yunho has always disliked sitting around making conjectures when he could go see something for himself. He wanders through the fog in an arbitrary direction, intent on finding out anything he can about this strange world between worlds. It seems like he only blinks, and a shimmering disturbance in the fog is hanging in the air before him, almost like a portal. Yunho can feel it drawing him closer with each step he takes in its direction. Surely, he's beyond hurting now, isn't he? Nothing in this place could end too badly for him?

He's about to take another step toward the portal when a weight tackles him out of nowhere, throwing him to the ground with an impact he doesn't really feel. Alarm bells go off in Yunho's head, his fists coming up to defend himself out of instinct, and━

And he sees who it is. He sees Mingi's face pressed into his shoulder, holding onto him with a ferocious intensity. The wetness that wells up in Yunho's eyes may not register physically, but it soothes an ache in his chest too strong to be any sort of illusion. "What are you still doing here, you idiot?" he asks even as he holds the other man closer.

Mingi doesn't answer him at first. He composes himself a moment longer before helping them both back to their feet, scrubbing a hand over his face to get his senses back. "I told you to look for me, so I waited. Knew you'd be joining us soon, and would you look at that? You did it."

It's not a question. The absolute faith Mingi has in him makes a brief smile bloom on Yunho's face. Then, "Us?"

"Oh." Mingi's expression sobers. "San already went on ahead. There's still someone else he's hoping to find. I told him you'd understand."

Of course Yunho does. He already feels lucky enough having someone here before the end. It would be selfish to deny San his own form of happiness.

"And there's someone else," Mingi says carefully. "One more person who refuses to move on. I tried to talk to him, but...he won't listen. Not to me."

Yunho's memory of a heart feels like it's stopped beating as he follows Mingi away from the light. They walk for a few minutes, or maybe hours, and finally Yunho sees him: curled in on himself with his head tucked in between his knees and looking far too small. When something catches in Yunho's throat at the sight, he doesn't hesitate. He doesn't think about everything that went wrong and all of the mistakes that were made. He sits at Hongjoong's side and gathers the other man in his arms, feeling him let out a long, shaky breath. Hongjoong doesn't lean into the touch, but he doesn't pull away.

"She picked you, didn't she?"

"She did. And we were able to finish her plan. It worked."

The noise Hongjoong lets out is an ugly one. "You did what I couldn't do, then."

"Stop. We never would have gotten close without everything you did before, the hard work we  _ all _ put in to make it to the end."

"Even if that's true, it changes nothing. I still can't go through that portal." Hongjoong does pull away from Yunho's hold, then, finally meeting his eyes. "What I did was unforgivable. If I walk through the light, I'm not going to a new world. I'm going to Hell."

The words aren't jaded and bitter like Yunho expects. Hongjoong sounds terrified. What could you say to a person who'd convinced themselves they weren't worthy of being saved?

"Hongjoong," Yunho insists, "You're not alone in your sins. I'm not excusing what you did, but I'm telling you the truth. I'll never forgive myself for killing that man I thought was a Possessed. Mingi has blood on his hands he wishes wasn’t there, San has made more than one bad call, and I'm sure there are things Wooyoung did during his training that he'd never want to tell us about. And still, we've all been given a second chance. Why shouldn't you?"

"You all still deserve━"

"It's not about deserving it. It's a gift."

Something shifts in Hongjoong's expression. "You've spoken with her, haven't you? Teliko. That's the only way you'd understand." Though he doesn't elaborate, Yunho thinks he knows what Hongjoong means.

Hongjoong stares at something in front of them, conflicted, and Yunho realizes with a start that it's the same portal as before. He shares a glance with Mingi, but the other man shrugs and shakes his head. The rules of time don't seem to apply here, so why should the rules of space?

"Why don't we all go together?" Mingi suggests. "If someone really doesn't want to let you through, Hongjoong, we'll drag you there ourselves."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Yunho agrees. He doesn't say that lightly. For all her warmth and wisdom, if he's wrong about Teliko and she won't grant Hongjoong peace, Yunho would strike her down rather than let Hongjoong fall away.

Hongjoong doesn't protest when Yunho holds out a hand to pull the other man to his feet. He still hasn't taken his eyes off of the portal. "I...okay," he finally agrees. "If you're sure."

"We're all getting through. I promise."

Hongjoong knows he can take Yunho’s words seriously, especially when it comes to something like this. The nod he gives both of them is a firm one. "Then let's do it."

The portal seems brighter now, almost like it knows they're finally ready ━ all of them. They stand in front of it with their hands joined and minds clear. Yunho gives them one last look. "I'll see you both on the other side."

Then they run into the light, and once again, Yunho's world goes white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One (little) final part coming tomorrow~


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second chances.

Seonghwa is stressed.

The graduate program had been enough on his plate already between all of the reports and presentations he was responsible for, but today is the day he teaches his first class. After the course’s professor had to quit halfway through the Fall semester for personal reasons, Seonghwa had been (from one perspective) fortunate enough to be selected as the woman's replacement. Needless to say, the thought of trying to present quantum physics in a digestible way to sixty plus students isn't doing wonders for his blood pressure.

Fortunately, he's been blessed with a TA who's been assigned to help him; Yeosang has been nothing short of a godsend. They'd met before today a couple times to plan out their respective roles, and they're so in sync working together that it feels like they've already been a team for years. They'll get through this together.

Speaking of which...one look at the clock lets Seonghwa know that class is starting soon. Students should be starting to file in any minute now. Yeosang, who's already sitting at one of the front tables, has the nerve to grin when he sees Seonghwa's expression. "Don't be so nervous," he chides.

"Maybe we should switch places if you're so confident."

There's clearly more teasing where that came from, but the first student is already coming in through the door. Seonghwa straightens up and discreetly wipes his sweaty palms off on his jeans when no one is looking. He's been through much worse than this, he's sure.

He can do this.

Ω

Class is starting soon. Normally Wooyoung wouldn't care about being a few minutes behind the bell, but he'd heard that there was a graduate student replacing his professor, so he decided to show up early today. It couldn't hurt to make a decent first impression.

While he waits, he doodles aimlessly in the margins of his notebook, some imagined apocalyptic landscape with creatures of all shapes and sizes fighting a group of brave warriors. Wooyoung is halfway through shading one creature's eyes a dark black when he hears the chair next to him slide out and a backpack drop to the floor. 

Strange. Normally he sits alone, with how many students either skip the lectures or decide to sit on the far edges of the classroom. He's not surprised to see an unfamiliar face when he looks up at the newcomer. Or...maybe unfamiliar isn't the right word. Wooyoung swears he's never seen him before ━ it must be a new student ━ but there's a spark of recognition there when their eyes meet. He has no idea why, but he feels like he  _ knows _ this person.

"Mind if I borrow a pen?" the not-quite-stranger asks, and if Wooyoung's fumbling fingers linger on the others' for a beat too long when he passes it over, no one needs to know.

"I'm Wooyoung," Wooyoung introduces himself abruptly. He swears he's had a similar conversation before. Is this what deja vu feels like? He'd be more worried about his mental state if it weren't for his clammy palms and rapidly beating heart. There seems to be a brand new set of problems he’s just acquired.

The other man's eyes form thin crescents when he smiles.

"San."

Ω

Yunho is glad the Fall weather is finally hitting them in earnest. Walking between classes is good for clearing his head, but he can only stand it so much when the sun is too hot and too bright above his head. Showing up at lectures with sweat dripping from his hairline and breaths coming in short pants isn't really a look he likes to repeat very often.

Right now, however, there's no lecture he has to be at. He and Mingi are on their way over to the campus cafe to meet Wooyoung and Jongho for their weekly study group. College has been a little overwhelming, if Yunho's being honest, but it's nice that he has his best friend here with him so they can at least suffer together. There's perks to knowing each other ever since...well, Yunho can't pinpoint it exactly, but ever since he can remember.

"Oh, that's right," Yunho says suddenly, snapping his fingers. "Wooyoung said he's bringing the new kid with him that he met in class the other day.”

"You mean San?" His surprise must show, because Mingi quickly explains, "Woo mentioned him to me the day they met. Wouldn't stop talking about him, actually. If you ask me, he sounded pretty smitten."

Yunho makes a measly attempt at hiding his smile. "You sure it's a good idea for San to be here today, then?"

"I'll make sure Wooyoung stays focused."

Yunho snorts. "Right. And who's going to keep  _ you _ focused?"

Mingi shoves him with his shoulder, and Yunho feels his own laughter vibrate in his chest before it drifts into the autumn air. Stress and an uncertain future are the last things on his mind, not when he has people he loves and moments like these.

Right now, all he feels is peace.

Ω

A bell dings above his head as Hongjoong walks into the campus cafe.

Instinctively, he scopes out who's all here today before he heads to the counter, and he immediately spots Seonghwa and Yeosang sitting in their usual spot, talking while they work on grading papers. Hongjoong sends Seonghwa a wave as he passes. The other man had been his TA before he'd moved on to grad school, so they've known each other for some time. Not enough to spend time together outside of classes, as of yet, but enough to share a greeting or two when they pass by each other on campus. Maybe someday that will change.

At the counter, Hongjoong orders his usual. He accepts it from the cashier with a grateful smile, and with a coffee in his hand Hongjoong's mind immediately snaps back into work mode. He feels himself going through the list of work that's already building up this semester, cataloguing tasks into what needs to be done sooner rather than later.

So focused are his thoughts that Hongjoong realizes too late there's a person stepping in front of him. They come together in an awkward half-collision, and Hongjoong just barely manages not to spill his entire drink down the other's shirt. "I'm sorry," he apologizes immediately. "I wasn't looking where I was going, and..."

And for some reason, when he sees who he's looking at, he feels guiltier than nearly-spilled coffee should make him feel. Why is his gut telling him that he needs to apologize for more than that?

"Wooyoung, right?" Hongjoong checks. He thinks he recognizes the other man from a different class, which might explain at least some of these thoughts.

Wooyoung nods, wary.

"Can I buy you a coffee? As an apology?"

He gets a shrug in return instead of an answer, but that's enough for Hongjoong. And when he actually goes through with it, handing the new cup over, the smile Wooyoung gives him seems genuine.

"Thanks," Wooyoung tells him sincerely. He hesitates for a moment before adding, "You know, I'm actually in the middle of a study group. We're focusing on calculus right now, but we can also go over graphics. If you, uh, want to join."

That sounds a whole lot like forgiveness, and more importantly, like the start of a new beginning. Hongjoong gratefully accepts the offer, something inside him mending that he didn't realize was torn. He follows Wooyoung to the back of the cafe where three tables have been inelegantly pushed together and covered in a whirlwind of textbooks, loose notebook paper, and half-sharpened pencils.

The others gathered around the table give Hongjoong a brief greeting before they jump back into their discussion with renewed fervor. Wooyoung and Yunho Hongjoong already knows, but some of the others he doesn't recognize. That's alright. Hongjoong seems to have found a place now where he feels like he can stay, and there's plenty of time for learning names and everything after that. There's no need to worry.

Life is good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this before, but thank you again for reading! I'd love to know what you thought, so please feel free to drop a comment. I'll be back with more ATEEZ in the not too distant future :)


End file.
